Chunky Pickle:
In Boxing were you get boxers like laila ali and katie taylor who have had the opportunity to learn boxing from being a small kid from being taught by their father's who are retired boxers themselves at a time where most of their competition have not had that opportunity so when they compete it becomes so easy to put those women on pedestals or to be objective and see the potential there for women's boxing to be great with a bit of nurturing over generations.
I don't think we are seeing that kind of thing in MMA probably because women are more likely to have started doing more martial arts from being a kid, the same as the men so we do not tend to see such differences in skill between one another (i.e we're not seeing katies or layla's in MMA), yet it is clear that women struggle to gain bout experience in MMA as in boxing, if not more in MMA than in Boxing actually. We don't tend to go up and down the weight classes by more than a few kg just to get a bout, because in amateur boxing our coaches do not allow us to do stupid things like that. That said, it's been a while since I last paid attention to it, to be honest so I might be a little behind the times there...
One example of a bout which never should have happened in the first place was Sexton vs. Carano. Sexton is nowhere even close to Carano's weight class, I think Carano has over 10kg on Sexton on a normal day No disrespect to Gina Carano, but pound for pound sexton seems to be a more technical, better fighter whereas Carano, whilst good won that bout before it even started against a "fighter" who is pound for pound, imho a lot better then her. Carano stopped Sexton by knocking her out cold which to me seemed like an inevitability but to the crowd it must have just seemed like Carano was really great and Sexton was no good, or something. I think that sort of nonsense gives combat sports a really bad image because it's just crowd pleasing.
I have mixed feelings about MMA for similar reasons to those expressed about pros and the stuff above really. So far as I can see in Boxing we have a safer and a more sensible approach to matchmaking and bout safety than in MMA but with that said, you do get silly matchmaking going on in the pros in boxing too, for sure. I am not sure how MMA matchmaking works but in Boxing, it is the coaches who do the matchmaking. One stark difference, however is that in MMA the onus is on the "fighter" to tap out if they are losing whereas usually in boxing it will be the corner or the ref who will stop a bout unless the boxer does that themselves which is exceptionally rare. There is a reason it is rare. Combat sports are a third fitness a third skill and a third psychology.
As a "fighter", you need to believe you are going to win to the end and besides all that, in a bout you don't really feel yourself getting hurt because of all that adrenaline kicking in. I had to throw in the towel for a guy I was cornering once, he was on survival mode and had no idea what was going on so he would not have been well placed to make the right decision for his own safety, he got a silver anyway but the reality is he would have got hurt in that bout if we had not seen fit to stop it.
It's when corner people and management are just in it to make a buck or a name for themselves that in my view these sports start going bad and things get more and more sexist. From my experience anyway, there seems to be a definite link between those who are interested in exploiting combat sport and those who seem opposed to women taking part.
I guess perhaps the majority of those who exploit combat sports can sleep better knowing it was only some 25 year old guy getting his head punched in for a baying crowd of drunken gamblers whereas somehow women doing it is deemed to be unacceptable because they want to be able to objectify women in quite another way, or something like that. People who get boxing and are involved for the right reasons, are increasingly gaining respect for women's participation in the sport. I imagine MMA would be much the same but the problem in MMA is more the direction the sport itself is going so I am not totally hopeful about the future for women or men in the sport as things are to be honest.
I think when you take money out the equation, these sports really do get a lot cleaner and you will attract more women as things are though, I think MMA is a fast growing market and market is the word, there. Right now (at least anyway) there just doesn't seem to be enough of an amateur culture for the sport to become an attractive enough option for female competitors to grow at the rate they are in boxing these days. imho, for MMA to best nurture the growth female presence in competition, it would need to nurture that amateur culture more and try to get itself into competition like the Olympics. Otherwise the culture in MMA will continue to force female competitors to take huge risks (as Sexton did with Carano) just to gain experience and feel they are able to progress. I am not saying that does not happen in boxing, it does. I've taken risks myself in all honesty, but in MMA the problem there seems a bigger hill to climb when you consider all the other factors.