Not a lot of girls can KO fighters. I KO all the girls.
In the days of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, our women waged a bloody struggle with weapons in their hands to liberate their country.
Normally for me, it's not interesting. When do you see in the jungle, female fighters fighting each other? I mean it's not human nature.
I feel like a lot of people know me because I beat Ronda Rousey.
You can have a fight card full of male fights, but yet when that women's fight comes on, that's what people watch. They're super excited by it.
There are certain things that I always dreamed of, like fighting in the UFC. There's just certain things that I feel like haven't been accomplished there. There's such great women coming up in the sport; seems like a wonderful time to be in women's MMA.
I'm a woman who's been in a man's sport since the age of 15, and to see people finally seeing what I saw right from the start, that female fighters are just as good 'pound-for-pound' as our male counterparts.
People like myself have been pushing, competing, and promoting female MMA for a long time, and to see the fans accept a female division in the UFC so quickly is vindication that all that hard work amounted to something.
To go from hit-and-miss promotions barely taking women's fighting seriously to women headlining on a regular basis, high-level fights, it's an amazing thing to see. And it happened in what I felt was a pretty quick succession - though not fast enough - as far as professional sports go. It's really exciting.
I fight for the women. I try to do my best inside the Octagon to fight like a man; then, people will respect girls in the Octagon.
When I looked at the state of women's MMA, what I saw was that it was missing rivalries or anything theatrical about it. Everybody was trying to be Miss America, unwilling to go under any kind of criticism, and taking the safe answers. I thought I needed to do whatever I could to get attention.
I never hated Ronda. She's always talked about me; she did that to promote herself because when she started, nobody knew her, and she talked about me for people to know who she is. And she opened the doors for women's MMA.
Ronda Rousey changing the game for MMA, you know? Dana White said he'd never have a girl in the Octagon. Ronda Rousey comes along, and she's the main event any time she's on. The women, I feel, in the UFC are stealing the show.
I'm 100 percent gonna beat Ronda Rousey - I'm 200 percent.
What we do is not easy. And if someone like Ronda Rousey wants to come and be a part of what we do, and that's her passion? That's awesome.
Every single woman that fights MMA has done just as much work as Ronda has; we just haven't gotten as much turnaround. Those women who came before her haven't been on magazine covers. They weren't plastered everywhere by the UFC. They didn't get the same reward back.
I remember when I first came out, it was like half and half, half the female fighters were like, 'I understand why she did it, and I'll fight her,' and half said I shouldn't be in the cage and said horrible, horrific transphobic comments about me.
I think the legacy Ronda leaves behind is that she changed women's MMA.
For girls it raises your testosterone, so I try to have as much sex as possible before I fight actually. Not with like everybody, I don't put out like a Craigslist ad or anything, but if I got a steady I'm going to be like 'yo, fight time's coming up.
In terms of career options, I didn't think about MMA at all. I don't know if I really thought it was a career path for many women. For someone like me, even in my prime, it wasn't something I really considered.
It's obvious that they're going to want Ali's daughter and Frazier's daughter to fight it out.
I'm a huge Ronda Rousey fan. She's extremely talented. What I like most about her is she's mean and nasty.
It's great to see there's a push behind women's MMA because everyone who's involved in women's MMA is very passionate about it.
Gina Carano is a great athlete, and I'd be happy if she returns to MMA - doesn't matter if it's against Ronda.
Women's MMA has come a really long way. People look forward to us fighting, and they get excited.
