MMAOddsBreaker’s Frank Trigg speaks with UFC 183 bantamweight Sara McMann about her upcoming preliminary card bout tonight (Jan. 31, 2015) against Miesha Tate at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The talented Olympic silver medal-winning wrestler understands that not all female fighters are judged by their talent, but instead by their looks, and she’s taken her stance in the UFC women’s bantamweight division:
“It’s a conscious choice when I went into MMA. I decided, I saw MMA clearly as it was from the outside. When I first saw it, it was all Gina Carano. She was marketed as this beautiful, smart, great fighter and stuff like that, but a lot of the emphasis was put on her looks. I was like, ‘Let’s focus on her Muay Thai championship. This girl can actually fight!’ I made a choice. I fought my whole life in the wrestling rooms to be one of the guys. I would rather be respected than desired. I just never could shake that. I don’t want guys to look at me and think that. I want them to respect me as a fighter and other women too. I live in the real world and don’t fault anybody for choosing the path they’ve done and I realize my path makes me less money and gets me less attention, but the attention I do get is attention I’m okay with.”