With the recent news that women’s strawweight stars, Paige VanZant and Felice Herrig will be facing off in the Octagon for the 15th instllment of the UFC On Fox series of fight cards, a bit of controversy has already begun to swirl concerning a comment that VanZant made about the matchmaking for the bout, where she opined that the reason the bout was booked was because she and Herrig are the “hot girls.”
Scottish kicking machine, Joanne Calderwood was recenty a guest on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, where she gave voice to some concerns she has regarding the match-up.
“If that’s true, then it’s pretty shitty. I mean, it’s like what I was saying about Sean Shelby was saying about my record. I was looking at Paige’s record, and Felice has a lot more experience than her, so how can that happen? I would hope that it doesn’t come down to their looks, because this is sport and at the end of the day it shouldn’t come down to whether you’re good looking or not, it should be because you’re a good fighter or not. But, it’s going to be a good fight between the two of them. I am not going to comment if they are good looking or not, but they are good fighters.”
Calderwood makes a valid point, however, if history has taught us anything, it’s that the UFC rewrites the rules as they see fit, evidenced by last year’s match-up between Patrick Cummins and Daniel Cormier. The ironic part about this situation is that UFC matchmaker, Sean Shelby has not given much hope to Calderwood regarding a bout for her, citing her unblemished 9-0 record as the reason for her being on the shelf, since commissions typically don’t allow for a large disparity in fight experience. If one takes a look at Felice and Paige’s records, Felice is the much more seasoned fighter with 6 years and 15 fights under her belt, whereas Paige has just 5 fights to her credit.
The irony has not gone unnoticed, as “Dr. Kneevil” alluded to in the quote above. Hopefully the UFC brain trust will locate an opponent for her soon, because July seems like an awfully long time to wait to see Joanne back in the cage.
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