UFC: Cat Zingano Is the Best Thing Happening at Women's Bantamweight

Stories sell in individual sports. Without 20 other people to take a piece of the blame or share a piece of the glory in your athletic pursuit of choice, you need to have something about you that resonates.

If you don't, you'll be forgotten in a blink.

And that story should be something beyond acting a fool and being praised unyieldingly for it.

It should be more than breaking down language barriers with the use of a finger (no, not that finger).

It should be real. It should be palpable.

People watching should know that this is not a joke or a game, this is an athlete pursuing greatness in the face of all of life's circumstances, and they better get on board or go home.

That's what makes Cat Zingano such a special proposition for the UFC.

She's gone through it all, and she's still the best bantamweight they have who isn't named Rousey. She's the only competitor under contract whom anyone thinks might have a chance to dethrone the champion, and she's ready to take that shot in the coming months.

It's a remarkable place for her to be given the path she's taken to get there. That's been documented ad nauseam, but the fact remains that she's overcome the unspeakable to remain relevant.

In 18 months of inactivity, no one forgot her name. No one felt her spot was usurped.

Injuries and unpleasantness be damned, it was always her name on the tips of fans' tongues around the globe. It was never a matter of what would happen when she came back, or even if she'd come back, but instead of what the women's landscape would be like when she returned to stake her claim.

Her story wasn't a burden for her career. It was fuel for people to desire her rise that much more.

It was real. It was palpable.

And when she walked to the cage at UFC 178, a hardened scowl on her face the likes of which no athlete on the roster could match, people knew it wasn't a joke or a game. She was there for greatness.

Nobody gets through life without a few scuffs. You don't get to come out pristine on the other side. Some get scuffed up worse than others, but no one gets out totally clean.

It's what those scuffs make of a person that defines them; how they handle adversity and how it pushes them through.

A triumphant return followed by fulfilling a longstanding potential to be the second women's bantamweight champion the UFC has ever known is about as good as someone can do.

That makes Zingano and her story the best thing going in her division today.

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