The new face of women’s MMA; it’s not who you think

Thanks to the success of Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg – when all is said and done the title fight lived up to the hype – women’s MMA has taken another huge step closer to being on equal footing with the boys.

Two of the biggest hurdles, though, are still a lack of depth in the women’s field accompanied by a lack of personalities, fighters with name recognition. To the casual observer, there’s Gina Carano and now Cris “Cyborg” Santos and that’s about it. Before you start listing names – Erin Toughill, Kim Couture, Sarah Kaufman, etc. – realize I’m talking about the casual fan, people who are fans of MMA through their enjoyment of the UFC, for whom the Strikeforce card was likely their first exposure to women’s MMA.

So where am I going with this? Well, MMA Junkie has a nice little profile on Cindy Dandois, a Belgian fighter who has had precisely one professional MMA fight. Hardly enough to write a thousand-word story about, except for two things: one, her lone win was over Strikeforce’s top female contender Marloes Coenen (16-3), who was actually a backup for the Carano/Cyborg fight if one of them failed to make weight; two, she actually presents a third – and more realistic – side to who these female fighters are.

Carano is the daughter of a former NFL player who became a champion kickboxer before MMA, Cyborg is a physical monster from Brazil who trains alongside her equally scary husband, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos. Beauty and the Beast.

But Dandois is something else entirely, a judo champion and no-gi grappler who took up mixed martial arts as a way to lose weight after the birth of her first child. She now has two children and has no plans to give up fighting. In fact, she’s eyeing a run at Carano and Cyborg. That’s a more reasonable image of a woman in MMA, not someone who is naturally gifted or a physical beast who thinks only about training, training, training, destroying, destroying, destroying. Dandois is a martial artist and a mother. That’s a hell of a positive image to put on women’s MMA, it’s more relatable to fans (especially female fans) and more inspiring.