Dana White Softening Stance on Women in UFC?

Historically, Dana White has not been very excited about promoting the possibility of women fighting in the UFC. In fact, he once flat out told TMZ that women would never fight in the Octagon.

Over the last few months, it appears White has been a little more open-minded with the idea of having women fight for the UFC.

Following the UFC on FX 3 event this past weekend, the UFC President spoke with MMAJunkie and had this to say about the subject:

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"My thing with the female fighting is that I love Ronda Rousey, man. She's as tough and as nasty as it comes. I love Ronda, but I think Ronda is one of those girls that's up here. You have a lot of girls who compete in the sport that aren't on her level. It's not about having women's fights. It's about having enough good women in a division."

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There has been a lot of speculation as to how the UFC is going to utilize the star power of Rousey. Currently she, Gilbert Melendez and Daniel Cormier appear to be the three fighters giving credit and relevancy to the Strikeforce brand.

White has consistently said there are not enough good women fighters to sustain a division. At one time, the same could have been said about flyweight fighters.

Perhaps now that the UFC is taking a stronger look at women's mixed martial arts, we will see a tournament to crown the first UFC female champion, much like we are seeing for the current UFC flyweights.

Joe Chacon is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and a Staff Writer for Operation Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.