Strikeforce Fedor vs. Henderson Results: Why Women's MMA Is Set to Flourish

At Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson, one of the most significant occurrences of the year happened. No, it was not Dan Henderson defeating the once mighty Fedor Emelianenko but rather it was Miesha Tate submitting Strikeforce women's bantamweight champion Marloes Coenen, a woman who had never been submitted.

To understand why the Tate-Coenen fight was so important, it's necessary to go back to the genesis of WMMA's popularity.

From 2006 to 2008, a fighter by the name of Gina "Conviction" Carano tore up the EliteXC women's division en route to becoming one of the organization's most marketable stars. She was an exciting and capable fighter, well spoken and was very easy on the eyes, all the makings of a female MMA star.

Carano was swift becoming the rising star of MMA.

However, each star needs a rival. For every Anderson Silva and Chuck Liddell there must be a Chael Sonnen and Tito Ortiz.

Carano's rival would practically be her complete antithesis. While Carano enjoyed the media attention and the undying love of the male 18-34 year old demographic, Christiane "Cyborg" Santos was demolishing opponents but receiving only criticism from fans due the disparity between Carano's and Cyborg's physical appearances.

Carano and Cyborg eventually dispatched all other contenders and were destined to meet one another to decide who was the best female fighter. EliteXC folded before the fight could happen but the desire and need for the fight was so strong that Strikeforce held the fight under their banner (as well as increasing their promotion of women's MMA as a whole).

The two women were set to meet on August 15, 2009, to determine who would be the first Strikeforce women's middleweight champion (which has since been renamed to women's featherweight).

While there was significant buzz around the fight, there was also significant criticism. Many pundits pointed out that WMMA was finished regardless of whichever fighter was victorious.

Their argument was that if Cyborg won, WMMA would be without a powerful draw and that if the more marketable Carano won it still wouldn't matter since the one women's fight that people wanted to see was over.

Cyborg ended up defeating Carano via TKO at the very end of the first round. Just the fact that people are still discussing women's MMA has proved the skeptics wrong. Carano-Cyborg did not kill WMMA. In fact, women's MMA has grown beyond the point where the result of one fight can "kill" it.

Why has this happened?

Strikeforce's promotion of the women's bantamweight division (formerly called women's welterweight) has provided WMMA with a slew of new stars to market.

Does this mean that we will see WMMA in the UFC anytime within 2011 or 2012? Probably not, but it means that WMMA is set to grow and earn a spot in the world's leading MMA organization sometime in the future.

What will really serve as a boon to the eventual growth of WMMA is Miesha Tate's victory over Marloes Coenen. This circumstance was most fortuitous for women's MMA (commonly abbreviated as WMMA) since it guaranteed that WMMA would survive the difficult transitory phase that it currently faces.

What is meant by this is that WMMA's growth needs to be fueled by several fighters. Gina Carano, even if she comes back, cannot sustain WMMA long enough and intensely enough for it to make it to the UFC.

WMMA needs several stars to help keep it popular over the next few years while UFC president Dana White's primary criticism of WMMA—that the talent pools in each division aren't deep enough—is addressed by more brave women coming to compete.

How is it guaranteed that more women will come to compete? It isn't guaranteed per se but it's a safe bet because the sport of mixed martial arts is growing by leaps and bounds. When the sport reaches more women, more women will train and the talent pools will increase over time.

Thus, Miesha Tate winning provided a marketable star and a great competitive atmosphere in the women's bantamweight division since the champion and each of the top contenders (Coenen and former champion Sarah Kaufman) all have victories over one another.

Strikeforce now has stars and story lines in WMMA, which are needed to sell any fight.

Furthermore, MMAjunkie.com, arguably the most famous and well-respected MMA news site, has recently announced that they will be increasing their coverage of women's MMA with a weekly update piece on that aspect of the sport.

With MMAjunkie.com behind WMMA, it can be assured that WMMA's popularity and recognition will receive a significant increase.

So why is women's MMA set to flourish after the events of Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson? Because Miesha Tate's victory over Marloes Coenen has created a new "face of women's MMA" as well as great angles for upcoming women's fights. This is crucial because if this didn't happen, WMMA would have nothing to increase or even maintain its popularity while the weight divisions became more populated.

In the history of WMMA, Miesha Tate will go down as a figure that helped to solidify the gains the sport made as well as recruit new fans, such as Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture and Tito Ortiz did for men's MMA in the early 2000s.

Matt Saccaro is a Bleacher Report featured columnist and an avid MMA fan. For articles like the one above and for brilliant 140-character insights into MMA, follow him on twitter @mattsaccaro