The rise of women's MMA In Japan, female competition has been documented since the mid-1990s. Influenced by female professional wrestling and
kickboxing, the Smackgirl competition was formed in 2001 and became the only major all-female promotion in mixed martial arts. Other early successful Japanese female organizations included
Ladies Legend Pro-Wrestling, ReMix (a predecessor to Smackgirl), U-Top Tournament, K-Grace, and AX.
North America In the United States, prior to the success of
The Ultimate Fighter reality show that launched mixed martial arts into the mainstream media, there was little major coverage of female competitions. Some early organizations who invited women to compete included, International Fighting Championships, SuperBrawl,
King of the Cage, Rage in the Cage, Ring of Combat, Bas Rutten Invitational, and
HOOKnSHOOT. The first recorded American female competition was at an IFC 4 between
Becky Levi and Betty Fagan on March 28, 1997. This was soon followed by an IFC four women tournament sanctioned by the Louisiana Boxing and Wrestling Commission on September 5, 1997 in Baton Rouge. In 2002,
HOOKnSHOOT promoted an all women's card labeled ‘Revolution’. It was headlined by
Debi Purcell and Christine Van Fleet. In 2005 they held an all-women, one-night-only tournament featuring
Julie Kedzie,
Jan Finney, and
Lisa Ellis. From the mid-2000s, more coverage came when organizations such as
Strikeforce,
EliteXC,
Bellator Fighting Championships, and
Shark Fights invited women to compete. Following Zuffa's acquisition of Strikeforce in March 2011, there has been much speculation concerning the future of women's competition, in term both of relevance and popularity. The next step was for the
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to pick up women's MMA, however UFC President
Dana White was resistant. He has said, "There is not enough depth to create a women's division." However, Dana White warmed up to the idea of including women in the UFC and solely credits
Ronda Rousey as the reason women are fighting in the UFC. At the end of 2000s in
Mexico,
Ultimate Warrior Challenge Mexico (UWC), the oldest company in that country, hosted on May 30, 2009 an event called UWC: Furia Cacharilla that marked the first time there was a female combat in Mexican MMA. The protagonists were Margarita De La Cruz Ramírez and Cristina Marks, both debuting as professionals and with Ramírez taking the victory by submission.
Europe and Asia In
Europe some major organizations have held select female competitions, including
It's Showtime, Shooto Europe,
Cage Warriors in the
United Kingdom, and
M-1 Global, major MMA organization in
Russia.
ONE Championship is the leading
MMA promotion in
Asia and hosts many female professional mixed martial arts bouts.
Africa Africa's first female professional mixed martial arts bout was held in
Johannesburg,
South Africa in 2015. South Africa's Danella Eliasov defeated Zita Varju (Hungary) by first round submission. ==Rule differentiation==