In November 2012, the Ultimate Fighting Championship officially brought women into its organization with the signing of bantamweight Ronda Rousey. A year later, the fight promotion announced that it was expanding its female presence by signing eleven of the top women strawweights in the world.
Paige VanZant was among that eleven and believes the 115-pound weight class is the deepest of the women’s divisions.
“I do see the strawweights being the largest female division. I think it has the most talent, and I think we’re going to see that talent come,” the 21-year-old recent told the media while attending an event in Las Vegas.
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“We see a lot of fighters being pulled from Invicta FC still that are high-level talent. Michelle Waterson just got pulled. She’s really exciting to have. All these athletes are still coming up from Invicta. I think we’re going to see a lot more females come out,” added VanZant.
Not all of the female strawweights have made their way to the UFC through the all-female fight promotion of Invicta. UFC women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk inked a contract with the Las Vegas-based fight promotion in June 2014 without having previously fought in the United States.
The women’s divisions in the UFC are in their infancy and will continue to develop in the coming years. VanZant believes there’s a wealth of unknown talent out there that will soon be UFC fighters.
“I do think there’s a lot of talent out there that we haven’t seen yet.”
