The Best Female MMA Fighters Right Now
by Emily Smith
Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full-contact combat sport that uses various fighting techniques and skills from multiple martial arts in competition. MMA is gradually becoming one of the most popular sports in the world, attracting new fans daily. Female MMA fighters display strength and grit and here we have some of the best female MMA fighters:
Joanna Jedrzejczyk
She is a 35-year-old female fighter from Poland with a pro-MMA record of 16-5-0. Jedrzejczyk was the UFC Women's Strawweight Champion and the third overall European champion in UFC history, following Bas Rutten in 1999 and Andrei Arlovski in 2005. Joanna had been the undisputed number-one female strawweight as of July 22, 2016 until she lost the belt to rose namajunas. She made her name in Muay Thai as a six-time world champion and four-time European champion.
Joanna has 16 victories with a 32% finish rate, including four knockouts, one submission, and eleven decisions.
Amanda Nunes
Also known as “The Lioness.” Nunes is now a 34-year-old Brazilian female fighter with a 22-5-0 pro-MMA record. She became the first woman to be a two-weight class UFC champion and reigning champion of the women's Bantamweight and Featherweight divisions.
Amanda holds the record for most consecutive victories in UFC history among women and most wins in UFC women's title fights.
Furthermore, she has 22 victories with a 78% finish rate, including 13 knockouts, four submissions, and five decisions.
Ronda Rousey
One of the biggest female stars to ever grace the UFC, Ronda Rousey became the first female UFC hall of famer and also the first UFC female champion. She is also the first American to become a judo Olympic medalist when she won bronze in 2008.
Ronda retired from MMA in 2016 and went on to pursue a new type of challenge, as she signed with WWE, where she’s been SmackDown Womens Champion twice. WWE is popular worldwide and given her bright career there’s a chance we will see her immortalized in WWE action figures and games like the wwe legends slot casino game.
Cristiane Justino
Many consider Cristiane Justino (AKA Cyborg) the best female pound-for-pound fighter in MMA. She has defeated notable opponents like Marloes Coenen and Gina Carano. Cyborg's victory over Carano won her the respect of MMA fans, becoming Strikeforce's women's middleweight champion.
Justino ranks second in the world in terms of P4P female MMA fighters to MMARising.com. The first in the world in terms of 145-pound female fighters by the Unified Women's MMA Rankings.
Jennifer Maia
She is a 34-year-old Brazilian female fighter with a pro-MMA record of 19-9-1. Jennifer Maia has already established herself as one of the best Brazilian female MMA fighters. She competes in the Flyweight division most of the time.
Maia has been known to train at the highly respected Chute Boxe Academy in Brazil. She is currently signed with Invicta Fighting Championships and is doing an outstanding job.
Jennifer Maia has 19 victories with a 48% finish rate, including three knockouts, six submissions, and ten decisions.
Conclusion
That concludes our list of the top five best female MMA fighters. These fighters have etched their names in the history books with their incredible performances in a sport as strenuous and violent as this. While the men's divisions are still dominant in their numbers — we can all be very excited by how quickly women's MMA is catching up.