Ronda Rousey and the 10 Best Female Fighters in MMA History

Just because you know the destination doesn't mean you can't learn from the journey.

And the journey we're about to take is through a little place we like to call "history." 

Ronda Rousey is the best female MMA fighter to ever walk the planet. She'll have a chance to further hone that reputational blade this Saturday when she meets former boxing champion Holly Holm at UFC 193, going down from Melbourne, Australia.

Rousey's the tops, but there's a legion of elite female fighters, past and present, to discover. The sport is so new that it's relatively easy to look back and see the bones of its construction, its founding legends, its inaugural champions. The old and new schools have each spawned magnificent fighters, while and well before Rousey became a household name.

Let us now rank and recognize some of those greats.

These are the 10 best female MMA fighters ever. They are listed based on records, accomplishments, their overall place in the sport, skills and average strength of opponent. The division presented in each slide is the weight class in which the fighter primarily competes or competed.

Disagree with any selections? Ah, never mind. I'm sure that won't happen.

Honorable Mentions

Joshua Lindsey-USA TODAY Sports

Amanda Nunes

Here they are, listed in no particular order alongside their records as of November 9, 2015:

• Tara LaRosa (22-5)
• Ayaka Hamasaki (12-1)
• Amanda Nunes (11-4)
• Rosi Sexton (13-5)
• Jessica Aguilar (19-5)
• Gina Carano (7-1)
• Svetlana Goundarenko (6-2)
• Jennifer Howe (13-2)
• Michelle Waterson (13-4)
• Megumi Yabushita (19-22)
• Alexis Davis (17-6)
• Hisae Watanabe (19-6)
• Carla Esparza (10-3)
• Ikuma Hoshino (9-1-1)
• Sara McMann (8-3)
• Yuuki Kondo (11-5-1)
• Tonya Evinger (17-5)
• Barb Honchak (10-2)

10. Claudia Gadelha

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Claudia Gadelha

Division: Strawweight
Record: 13-1
Age: 26
Key wins: Ayaka Hamasaki, Jessica Aguilar, Valerie Letourneau 

The youngest fighter on this list has already amassed some career-defining victories. She is also easily the fighter who gave current UFC strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk (and we'll get to her) the toughest fight of her pro career.

It speaks to Gadelha's mental and technical advancement. She's polished (particularly on the ground), aggressive and physically solid. The Nova Uniao trainee is more developed than many of her specialist predecessors ever were.

She'll be around at the sport's highest levels for some time, and the inevitable rematch with Jedrzejczyk will be must-see TV.

9. Cat Zingano

Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

Division: Bantamweight
Record: 9-1
Age: 33
Key wins: Miesha Tate, Amanda Nunes, Barb Honchak, Carina Damm

Cat Zingano's career has been hampered by injuries and the optics of her 14-second humiliation against Rousey earlier this year. 

But consider this: Only one time has Zingano gone the distance as a pro. The lone exception was a decision win over Honchak, who currently owns gold for the Invicta FC promotion. Zingano has held titles on four occasions in two different promotions and three separate weight classes.

When she's firing on all cylinders, Zingano is a frickin monster. Here's hoping she still has some great fights left in her.

8. Miesha Tate

Rey Del Rio/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

Division: Bantamweight
Record: 17-5
Age: 29
Key wins: Marloes Coenen, Sara McMann, Jessica Eye

As with one or two others on this list, Miesha Tate's value may be artificially suppressed because of her run-ins with Rousey.

If she fights two randos instead of Rousey, Tate probably has a better record right now.

Then again, her role as Rousey's personal gadfly probably raised her profile a bit.

I don't even know what point I'm trying to make here. In either case, Tate, who wrestled in high school, was putting in work on smaller MMA circuits back in 2007. A grinder first and foremost (and only, depending on whom you ask), she has racked up some terrific wins and held the Strikeforce title before relinquishing it to Rousey.

7. Sarah Kaufman

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Division: Bantamweight
Record: 17-3 (1)
Age: 30
Key wins: Miesha Tate, Alexis Davis (2x), Roxanne Modafferi, Valerie Letourneau

Long before UFC President Dana White saw the light, Sarah Kaufman was making all kinds of hay in Strikeforce.

For quite a while there, Kaufman was considered the best in the sport. Always dangerous on the feet, when she grafted jiu-jitsu onto her kickboxing base, it made her a well-rounded fighter when such notions were still novel.

Kaufman joined the UFC in 2013 and hasn't had much luck since. If not for her fight with Jessica Eye becoming a no-contest because of Eye's drug-test failure, she'd be 1-2 in the promotion right now. She was easily outstriking Alexis Davis earlier this year when Davis caught her in an armbar.

Such is life in the big city. Kaufman has the skills to get back on the good foot against Germaine de Randamie in December. And she's still only 30. It will be interesting to watch her write these next few chapters of her career.  

6. Marloes Coenen

Josh Hedges/Forza LLC/Getty Images

Division: Featherweight
Record: 23-6
Age: 34
Key wins: Sarah Kaufman, Yuuki Kondo (2x), Yoko Takahashi (2x), Roxanne Modafferi

It's easy to forget what a trailblazer Marloes Coenen has been for her sport and how successful she's been during her 15 years in it.

The Dutchwoman was every inch a pioneer when she stepped into a cage for the first time at age 19 for a Tokyo show called Ladies Legends Pro Wrestling and submitted Yuuki Kondo in less than three minutes. Even if she didn't know it.

"It's funny because at the time, you're not thinking, ‘we're making history,'" Coenen told Dave Doyle of MMA Fighting in August. "But when you look back at it, you can appreciate what you built."

The date was November 2000. For perspective, that was a month before UFC 29, where Pat Miletich defended his welterweight title against Kenichi Yamamoto and some guy named Chuck Liddell beat Jeff Monson by decision on the undercard. At the end of that year, Kazushi Sakuraba defeated Ryan Gracie and Igor Vovchanchyn bested Mark Kerr at Pride 12 in Saitama Super Arena.

Coenen's pioneer status lies in more than just the act of competing. People point to Gina Carano as the Rousey prototype: the telegenic, well-spoken but fierce fighting female. But that model didn't originate with Carano. That lineage traces back to Coenen.

The Strikeforce champion for a year before losing it to Tate, Coenen is 34 years old and competing now under the Bellator banner, though her schedule is slower than it used to be. No matter how or when she goes out, it's worth remembering that no fighter had a bigger role in pouring the foundation of women's MMA.

5. Megumi Fujii

Division: Strawweight
Record: 26-3
Age: 41
Key wins: Carla Esparza, Lisa Ellis (2x), Mei Yamaguchi, Seo Hee Ham 

Megumi Fujii is a natural born fighter. There's a sense she would have found a way to get this sort of thing into her life sooner or later, regardless of money or notoriety.

If you don't believe me, please ask one of the approximately seven thousand black belts she holds in different martial arts, more than one of which has witnessed some distinguished Fujii moments in its own right, independent of MMA.

The submission-grappling sorceress stayed in the game long enough to make it over to Bellator, where she won a few contests at an advanced age before retiring in 2013 after her second loss to a younger, stronger Jessica Aguilar.

But she will live on for some time. Few fighters, any gender, have captured the imagination and devotion of hardcore MMA fans like the originator of the Megulock.

4. Joanna Jedrzejczyk

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Division: Strawweight
Record: 10-0
Age: 28
Key wins: Claudia Gadelha, Carla Esparza, Rosi Sexton, Jessica Penne

Joanna Jedrzejczyk is No. 4 with a bullet, and anyone who has watched her fight knows exactly why that is.

At age 28, the reigning UFC strawweight champ has chewed through all comers, first in her native Poland and now in the UFC. She has a beautiful blend of strikes and clinch work that you just don't see every day. She moves so well. She has knockout power that belies her size. She sees what's happening. She's aggressive. She's violent. She might be one of the most skilled fighters in the UFC right now. And she understands the psychology of the sport, of winning fans and influencing opponents with brash talk, leavened with candor and sweetened with a touch of humor.

Maybe she doesn't have the same historical bona fides as some of these other ladies, but that should change. Fans who tune into UFC 193 will have the pleasure of watching her ply her craft against Valerie Letourneau. If that goes as planned, a high-stakes rematch with Gadelha should be in the offing. 

3. Yuka Tsuji

Division: Strawweight
Record: 24-3
Age: 40
Key wins: Ikuma Hoshino, Mei Yamaguchi, Seo Hee Ham 

What I'd like to do right now is have everyone get on their feet, and give it up. Give it up for the Vale Tudo Queen.

It has been three years since Yuka Tsuji last competed and several more before that since her athletic peak. Tsuji is a true pioneer—maybe the pioneer—of the women's game, being one of the first females to win an MMA title as the first lightweight champ in Japan's Smackgirl promotion (which later became the more familiar Jewels organization).

Tsuji, an international-level freestyle wrestler in the late 1990s, defended her Smackgirl belt five times and later added the Valkyrie promotion's featherweight title to her resume.

Oh, and you think Rousey's an armbar specialist? Try Tsuji's 12 armbar wins on for size (Rousey has nine).

She didn't face the kinds of well-balanced warriors that are commonplace today. But what she did in her own time is more than enough to qualify her as women's MMA royalty.

2. Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino

Josh Hedges/Forza LLC/Getty Images

Division: Featherweight
Record: 14-1
Age: 30
Key wins: Marloes Coenen (2x), Gina Carano, Shayna Baszler 

Now we're in to territory that everyone should recognize. If there is any fighter in the world right now who might, just might, be Rousey's equal, it's the muay thai destroyer from Curitiba, Brazil, Cristiane Justino.

She hasn't lost since her first professional fight. She hasn't gone the distance since her second. Her last eight wins have all come by knockout. In the past two years, only Coenen has managed to last beyond the first round.

Every bit as aggressive as Rousey and perhaps more so, Justino's swarming, stalking standup is a sight to behold. If Rousey handles Holm on Saturday, expect the Cyborg talk to once again swirl wildly around the web. As well it should. The weight thing needs to get figured out in good faith, and this fight needs to happen, or else Rousey's resume (and, to a lesser extent, the UFC itself) will forever contain one Cyborg-shaped hole.

1. Ronda Rousey

Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

Division: Bantamweight
Record: 12-0
Age: 28
Key wins: Miesha Tate (2x), Cat Zingano, Sarah Kaufman, Alexis Davis, Sara McMann 

And now we arrive at the GOAT.

Get excited, Ronda. Celebrate a little! It's not every day you hit No. 1 in a slideshow like this. Soak it in. You're very welcome.

In all seriousness, we all know why she's here. No one needs a refresher. It's not like MMA fans ever go 15 minutes without hearing about her. 

Just remember: She's still getting better. That's crazy. Being The First-Round Armbar Lady wasn't enough. So now she's knocking people out. Even with the experimentation, her last four fights have gone a total—not an average, but a total—of two minutes and 10 seconds.

There are plenty of other fighters, like the ones on this list, who deserve recognition. There are plenty who have had a hand in constructing this nascent and exploding sport. But none has been bigger or better than Ronda. Not even close.
 

Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. If you feel so inclined, you can find Scott on Twitter.

All record information courtesy of the Sherdog Fight Finder database.