Dana White Expects to See a Boom in WMMA Along with More Divisions

Although not for everyone, WMMA is taking off in popularity and one man in particular continues to be impressed.

That man happens to be UFC President Dana White, who had nothing but good things to say when speaking to USA Today about WMMA following the tryouts for The Ultimate Fighter 18.

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If you think about it, when we started this company, we had heavyweights, light heavyweights, middleweights and welterweights.That was it. When we brought in the 155-pound division, everybody was like, 'This is crazy. They're too small. Nobody will ever watch.'

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The lightweight division was far from smooth sailing in the early going, and it took an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter to rejuvenate the once dismantled division.

Of course change is always hard and sports fans are, without a doubt, creatures of habit. Still, White sees the sport evolving and expects WMMA to grow not only as a whole but in the UFC as well.

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The evolution of this sport as it's continued to grow, we've been adding weight classes, and the sport keeps getting bigger. There are more and more talented guys in all those weight classes. The same thing will happen with the women.

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The UFC up to this point has only embraced the 135-pound division in WMMA, but expect that to change.

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I think when you got into the 135-pound division, I knew there were enough fights for a year and a half, two years. You think that after it starts to generate some excitement and interest that other women will pop out of the woodwork. … I think over the next couple of years, we're really going to see a big boom.

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That boom likely will be due in large part to UFC champion Ronda Rousey. She nearly single-handedly changed White's viewpoints on WMMA from wanting nothing to do with it to fully embracing it. She's also the biggest star in WMMA and one of the biggest stars in all of MMA.

The USA Today article makes a good point about women's boxing experiencing a boom in the '90s and now has become nothing of note.

While I can agree that WMMA could become just another fad if more stars don't rise up and help Rousey market the sport, I don't believe it will happen. MMA overall has grown over the past few years, and although we aren't seeing the explosion in interest like we saw after TUF 1, the sport continues to grow on a global level.

That growth will seemingly go hand in hand, as the ultimate platform in WMMA has shifted to the Octagon. If the ladies can continue to put on these exciting fights, I don't anticipate WMMA going anywhere but up.