“I absolutely positively would bring Ronda Rousey into the UFC.” Those were the words of UFC President Dana White as he spoke with a group of reporters following Saturday’s UFC on FUEL TV 5 post-fight press conference in Nottingham, England.

White has stated in the past he does not feel there is enough depth in women’s MMA to create an entire female division in the UFC. However, White seems absolutely enamored with the “Rowdy” one, and those fight fans who thought the day would never come when a woman would be competing inside the Octagon may need to start reassessing that belief.

“It’s not that I’ve changed my position on women’s MMA,” said White. “I still believe it’s not deep enough to have a complete weight division to put on fights all the time, but yeah, it’s no secret that I’ve been pretty honest about my feelings about Ronda Rousey. I think she’s [expletive] awesome. I think she’s mean. I think she’s nasty. And she’s a real fighter and I like watching her fight, so I think there are going to be some fun fights with Ronda. And you got Cyborg if she can move down or whatever happens there, but there are still some fun fights for Ronda and some of the other women too. But you’d have to do some one-offs.”

White was asked if he meant “one-offs” on UFC cards. “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll see what happens. They fight for Strikeforce. We’ll see what happens. I’ve said publicly, ‘I absolutely positively would bring Ronda Rousey into the UFC.’ Yes.'”

White was then asked if he thinks Ronda is the “next big thing” in MMA? “I do. I think she’s the big thing now,” White said. “She’s already done things that we couldn’t get done. I mean she’s been on talk shows that we could never [expletive] get on. She’s done magazines and sold covers of magazines. … I heard that she was the best selling cover of ESPN The Body Issue. That’s what I heard. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s what I heard. My point is she’s one of those breakthrough stars. You guys saw I went to the Sons of Anarchy premiere with her, when we got out of the car the whole [expletive] place erupted like she was on the show or something. She’s there.”

UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones recently garnered a lot of attention after a Nike endorsement. White was asked if he feels it’s just a matter of time before Nike or another similar big name signs Ronda as well. “I think Nike, Gatorade, Under Armour, any of those big names should sign her. I think that she’d be a winner for any of them,” he said.

What are your thoughts fight fans, are you ready for women inside the Octagon? Is the world ready for women’s MMA in the UFC?

The one obstacle at the moment seems to be the Showtime/Strikeforce deal. Once they get that worked out, or once the inevitable end to Strikeforce finally comes, a Ronda Rousey vs. Cris Cyborg match-up is certainly UFC Pay-Per-View worthy.

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