The Best Women UFC Fighters

In 2012, when UFC was just shy of its 20th birthday, Dana White made history by revealing that the promotion would expand to feature female mixed martial arts for the first time. In making the announcement, White also identified UFC’s first female fighter: a still relatively unknown Olympic bronze medalist in judo by the name of Ronda Rousey.

Rousey eventually went on to become UFC’s first female champion, a reign that lasted over 1,000 days and weathered rivalries with the likes of Miesha Tate and Bethe Correia, before coming to an end at the hands (or, rather, the foot) of her fight with Holly Holm at UFC 193 in November 2015.

Rousey rightfully deserves credit for popularizing the UFC’s women’s division. Her unprecedented run at the top transcended the sport and catapulted her to celebrity status beyond even the likes of Conor McGregor or Chuck Liddell. Now she does movies, like the upcoming Roadhouse remake. (Yeah, they’re remaking Roadhouse, for some reason.) But as Rousey’s UFC career fades, dozens more are popping up in the hope of leading women’s MMA into a new era.

If you think that just because that there are only three weight divisions in women's UFC, the fighting is somehow less intense than on the men’s side, consider that strawweight fighter Justine Kish recently pooped herself while trying to break free from a rear-naked choke at the hands of Felice Herrig on one fateful night in Oklahoma City. Look, I know OKC isn’t exactly known for its rich regional cuisine, but perhaps the Chili Cheese Coney from the Will Rogers Airport Sonic wasn’t the ideal pre-match meal. Just saying.

Regardless, what’s clear is that the talent pool in the UFC’s womens’ division stretches far deeper than just the household names. Let’s take a look at the current best female UFC fighters by weight class division.

The featherweight division is the newest UFC weight class, and Germaine de Randamie won the inaugural featherweight title after defeating Holly Holm at UFC 208 last February—a unanimous decision that was controversial to say the least. De Randamie was stripped of her title a few months later after refusing to fight number one contender…

Thanks at least in part to her well-documented love of performance-enhancing drugs (please don’t hurt me), Cris “Cyborg” Justino boasts a 17-1 lifetime record and hasn’t lost an MMA bout since Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” was the number-one song in America. She’s due to face Megan Anderson to determine the next UFC featherweight champion.

Amanda Nunes made her UFC debut in 2013 in her native Brazil, defeating Sheila Gaff with a first-round TKO. Since losing to Cat Zingano at UFC 178, Nunes has been on an impressive run of five straight victories, including defeating Miesha Tate for the women’s bantamweight title at UFC 200, and defending it by handing Ronda Rousey her 2nd career loss six months later.

Legend has it that the number-one contender to Nunes’ title, Valentina Shevchenko, once knocked out an adult opponent at the age of 12. It happened in Kyrgystan, where apparently adults fighting kids is totally okay as long as the kid wins.

If you can’t pronounce Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s name, don’t worry: She has a handful of easier-to-annunciate but terrifying nicknames, like “Joanna Violence.” The consensus #1 pound-for-pound female fighter in UFC, Ms. Violence is undefeated in her UFC career and has successfully defended her women’s strawweight title six times.

Despite two separate losses to the aforementioned Jedrzejczyk, Claudia Gadelha is without a doubt a rising star in UFC. Whether she’ll ever get a third shot at the title is anyone’s guess, but Gadelha has no issue stating publicly that she feels she’s the real number one. Unfortunately for her, the official UFC ranking disagrees