Women’s MMA on the rise due to Strikeforce? Shannon Knapp thinks so

Women’s MMA has certainly emerged over the past few years, helped in no small part by California based promotion, Strikeforce and their fighter liaison and matchmaker, Shannon Knapp thinks it’s only the beginning.

Speaking via MMAWeekly this past week Knapp explained:

I think Cris ‘Cyborg’ is a tremendous athlete. She fights with an aggressive nature and also has the athleticism and the talent. Any time you have a champion, they represent you, and Cris represents us very well. She optimizes what a strong, athletic female athlete in this sport is. How could you go wrong? She keeps winning, she’s amazing when she’s in there, and I think everyone is very happy that she’s the one who holds the title

She then discussed the importance of adding a 135 pound title to the Strikeforce ranks, with a tournament also planned at that weight.

It’s huge. Especially when you have a female like Sarah Kaufman that’s out there just going through the 135-pound division, you come to a point when you have to say you have to solidify this weight class with a champion. I think it’s a great match-up, it will be a competitive fight, and we’re all excited about it.

We’re looking for the top female talent and are trying to put on good fights. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future you saw a fully loaded all-female fight card. There’s a lot of talk of, and we haven’t set a date yet, doing different tournaments in the female divisions

As long as the girls are coming in to fight, I’m all about it. I think that they have a spot in our sport, but there is still a long road to travel to get the type of acceptance females in other sports I feel are just now receiving. I think they’ve come a long way from where we were a few years ago. As awareness grows hopefully a lot more girls will be interested, they’ll apply themselves, and it will become deeper and more competitive

I definitely want to thank everybody for the support they’ve given Strikeforce. Without them we don’t have a product. We’ve got some great fights coming up this year and I don’t think the fans are going to be disappointed. I think the fans will really appreciate what we’ll put out there

Sara Kaufman is set to compete against Takayo Hashi tonight to determine the first ever women’s Strikeforce champion at 135 pounds in San Jose, California. The bout headlines the Challenger event.