Stephen A. Smith On Women In UFC: "I Don’t Want To See Women Fighting In The Octagon"

ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith controversially says he does NOT want to see women fighting in the UFC.

The American TV personality went off on a bizarre tangent when discussing the fact that women are getting higher executive roles in sports.

In a question which had nothing to do with women in MMA, he said: "First of all, I love it. I think there's an awful lot of women who are incredibly qualified to do the jobs they're doing."

Image: PA

Image: PA

Then the odd outburst, he continued: "Where I jump off the bandwagon is where they try to engage physically.

"For example, I don't ever want to see a woman boxing a man. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see a woman in the UFC fighting a man - even though there are some women out there that will kick the dude's butt.

"When I think about pugilistic sports, I don't like to see women involved in that at all. I just don't like it.

"I wouldn't pass, I wouldn't promote legislating laws to prohibit them from doing so, but I don't want to see women punching each other in the face.

"I don't want to see women fighting in the octagon and stuff like that. That's just me."

Smith added: "I certainly, what I adamantly would be against is them fighting men. I don't think that's cool. I'm not a proponent of that.

"Plus you don't ever want to give men a license to believe that it's all right to be physical with a woman, to be quite honest with you. You don't want to do that."

This is a man who notoriously has terrible MMA takes. He slammed Donald Cerrone for his performance against Conor McGregor in their UFC 246 showdown and said the title fight between Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje, which played out mainly on their feet, had no wrestling because of COVID-19 fears.

Image: PA

Image: PA

And his latest claim will go down like a lead balloon among MMA fans following the success of women fighters in the UFC.

Look no further than Weili Zhang and Joanna Jedrzejczyk who both gave UFC fans a 'Fight of the Year' battle last year.

Regardless of gender, they put on one of the greatest fights in UFC history.

What's your take? Let us know.

Topics: Amanda Nunes, UFC News, Stephen A. Smith, Fight News, UFC, Dana White

Nasir Jabbar

Nasir Jabbar is a journalist at SPORTbible. He graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA in Media Communications. He's a combat sport aficionado, and has contributed to MMA websites AddictedMMA and CagePotato. Nasir has covered some of the biggest fights, while interviewing the likes of Conor McGregor, Darren Till, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. He's also an avid Bristol City fan.

@https://twitter.com/NasJabbar