Vladimir VladisavljevicThe best and hottest female UFC fighters were just a fantasy in the early stages of the sport. Dana White hasn’t been friendly towards women inside the Octagon, but he changed his mind in 2012.
This was one of the greatest moves in the history of the fastest-growing sport in the world. There were so many bloody and battered wars between hot female Octagon warriors, which led to even greater popularity.
Pretty women usually don’t reach too far in the ring, the majority of them get destroyed in the first two or three bouts.
This article focuses on the best and hottest female UFC fighters who left their hearts inside the Octagon and reached enormous popularity on social media. Oh, some of them won the belt, too!
About the author
These are the best and hottest female UFC fighters:
- Ronda Rousey
- Valentina Shevchenko
- Joanna Jedrzejczyk
- Holly Holm
- Miesha Tate
- Carla Esparza
- Michelle Waterson
- Claudia Gadelha
- Mackenzie Dern
- Paige VanZant
- Amanda Ribas
- Tracy Cortez
Ronda Rousey
Ronda Rousey was living a very hard life before inking the UFC contract. She is a former Olympic judoka (expert in judo) who worked a difficult job, supporting herself and her dog.
She was barely surviving before joining UFC. But she’s a revolutionary person – this girl skyrocketed the popularity of females’ MMA.
Ronda was known for famous armbars and great clinch strikes. The best Judoka ever in the history of UFC and the former Strikeforce champ scored 12 back-to-back victories and defended the UFC strap six times in a row before she was stopped by Holly Holm’s magical left high kick at UFC 193.
Rousey is now pursuing the WWE dream. She has a kid with Travis Browne, the former UFC fighter, millions of followers on social media, plus she’s a famous TV and movie personality.
Further reading: The 7 greatest movies starring UFC fighters
Valentina Shevchenko
Valentina Shevchenko is one of the most dominant women in the history of this sport and the first-ever UFC champion from Kyrgyzstan. “Bullet” is the reigning defending 125-pound queen who has competed since the age of 15.
She devoted her whole life to martial arts and is a former Muay Thai champion of the world. She’s also very skillful in Judo, Taekwondo, boxing, and kickboxing.
Valya is the most dangerous southpaw female MMA counter-striker on the planet. She counters with a left spinning backfist, left high kick, or lightning-fast 1-2 punch and reactive takedowns. Valentina is a master of level change and she’s pretty much famous for great cardio.
Fans would like to see another fight between Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko, as she has good chances to become a two-division champ too. Her Instagram account has more than 2.5 million followers.
Valentina likes high-quality wardrobes, pets, and all kinds of training sessions. She defended her 125-pound strap six times in a row.
Further reading: The 12 greatest MMA fighters of all time
Joanna Jedrzejczyk
Joanna is the first-ever Polish UFC strawweight champion. She is a superb Muay Thai kickboxer that took trash-talking skills in the world of females’ MMA to the next level. Her word exchange with Claudia Gadelha is an epic example of great trolling skills.
Also, Joanna called Rose Namajunas “mentally unstable” before their UFC 217 match. Check out our article on the greatest trash talkers in UFC history for more information.
Jedrzejczyk underwent plastic surgery to increase the size of her chest too. She’s known for excellent front kicks and straight punches. Joanna is a sprawl and brawl fighter, a technical striker with calculated and precise strikes.
Many fans believe her fight against Weili Zhang was the bloodiest female battle in the history of this sport.
Holly Holm
Holly is a silent person and a devoted Christian. Some fans call her “the female Mirko Cro Cop” thanks to her excellent left high kick and top-notch boxing, especially her straight left hand.
Holly enjoys a variety of long-range strikes, but she improved her grappling in the last few years, which was seen in her last two fights against Raquel Pennington and Irene Aldana. The Preacher’s Daughter is one of the best and hottest female UFC fighters for a good reason.
The former UFC 135-pound queen is one of the most muscular female fighters on the planet. When she cuts weight, you can see every single muscle on her body. She is also one of the most dangerous female southpaw strikers.
Holm likes to keep her fans entertained with the latest training and fashion videos on her Instagram account.
Miesha Tate
Miesha Tate is one of the best and hottest UFC fighters on the planet, her nickname is Cupcake for a good reason.
The former UFC bantamweight champion is still famous for her top-notch wrestling and grappling, and great heart. It is very hard to roll with Miesha and defend her takedown attempts.
After her UFC 205 loss in 2016, Miesha put her career to a halt and became a mom of two with fellow fighter Johnny Nunez.
She returned to action in 2021 with a win over Marlon Reneau, then she was outworked by Ketlen Vieira in very close combat.
Miesha caught public attention when she spoke about dating female UFC fighters with their coaches. She’s also a movie celebrity, very famous on social media.
Carla Esparza
Carla Esparza is the former Invicta FC and UFC Strawweight champion and one of the most dominant female wrestlers in this sport. Esparza likes to fake punches to the face and drags the fight to the ground with lightning-fast single-leg or double-leg takedown attempts.
On the ground, she likes to mount the opponent and finish the fight via fists to the head or submission attempts. Her clinching is outstanding too.
Esparza’s now riding on a great score, with five consecutive wins. She dominated the majority of her opponents with the outstanding ground game and earned several “Performance of the Night” awards.
Esparza is followed on her Instagram by around 160k followers.
Michelle Waterson
Michelle Waterson is a Karate fighter who heavily modified her fighting style upon UFC arrival. The former Invicta Atomweight champ was way lighter than her opponents, so she had to gain muscle mass too.
Waterson is naturally a southpaw, but she changes stances all the time, confusing her opponents and creating new angles.
Michelle’s nickname The Karate Hottie speaks for itself. She was on the cover of many magazines and took part in four movies as of now.
Michelle is married to Joshua Gomez, a former U.S. Armed forces boxing champ, and she has a daughter.
Michelle’s Instagram is stacked with the attention of more than 1.6 million followers. Yet, she’ll hardly ever be a strawweight champ – her natural division is 105 pounds.
Claudia Gadelha
Gadelha is one of the hottest Brazilian competitors on the UFC roster. One of the best grapplers and cardio experts in the division is known for her everyday training routines. She rarely takes a day off because she believes the fighter should never stop learning.
Claudia Gadelha fought for the title once but she was defeated by Joanna Jedrzejczyk. She can handle a brutal barrage of bullets and keep marching forward.
Gadelha is one of the best and hottest female UFC athletes who constantly shows her perfectly shaped muscles and keeps fans busy with new training drills.
The former 115-pound title contender is a huge fan of traveling and tattoos too. You could say she is one of the greatest diehard training addicts in the world.
Mackenzie Dern
Mackenzie Dern is a former ADCC BJJ champ who kicked off her UFC run as a pure submission specialist but significantly improved her boxing, which was especially seen in her combat against Virna Jandiroba at UFC 256.
Nowadays, Mackenzie is a pressure fighter with great takedowns, submissions, and punch combos.
She started training BJJ at the age of three, reached the black belt when she was 19 years old, and had her debut at UFC 222, where she scored a split decision win over Ashley Yoder.
She’s married to famous surfer Wesley Santos, and she’s a mom of one daughter, Moa. Dern put her UFC career to a halt in 2018 due to pregnancy but got back against Amanda Ribas on October 12, 2019.
Dern’s Instagram account is stacked with positive comments about her look and performance. Many believe she has championship potential, and we’ll see if she’s going to recover mentally after the recent Marina Rodriguez loss.
Paige VanZant
Paige VanZant is known for a pretty controversial story. She changed her name due to high-school bullying and the MMA helped her overcome crisis and abuse issues. Her life partner is Austin Vanderford, Bellator grappling specialist, but Paige is a real queen of pain.
VanZant marches forward, eating shot after shot, keeping her opponent busy with a variety of kicks, punches, and takedown attempts. She can take a beating and remain on her feet.
Yet, she’s not a member of the UFC roster anymore because of her poor submission defense, which led to armbar and rear-naked choke losses.
It seems Paige loves hits to the face, as she took part in two bare-knuckle bouts, where she suffered back-to-back decision losses to Britain Hart and Rachael Ostovich.
She’s known for spectacular switch-kick KO over Bec Rawlings, and her Instagram account has more than 3 million followers. The popular 12 Gauge is a media personality and a writer too.
Further reading: The 8 fastest knockouts in UFC and MMA history
Amanda Ribas
Amanda Ribas is a promising BJJ/Judo prospect, fighting out of Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Since her arrival in the UFC, Ribas improved her stand-up game a lot too, and today her fighting resembles Jose Aldo (the former promotion 145-pound king) a bit.
This girl caught the fans’ attention after a surprising armbar submission win over Paige VanZant at UFC 251, and she’s a legitimate threat at the 125-pound weight class. She outworked Virna Jandiroba for a decision win in her last UFC bout.
Amanda constantly circles her opponent; her footwork is outstanding. Her father Marcelo Ribas is a coach, and she spent the majority of her life on the mats.
Amanda’s Instagram account is followed by over 1.4 million people. Ribas likes to train and she enjoys public attention.
Tracy Cortez
Tracy Cortez showed her interest in MMA at the age of 14 when her brother Jose defeated UFC vet Drew Pickett.
She competed in boxing in the first place, then transitioned to the UFC, where she holds an impressive record of five wins and zero losses.
Cortez is a very tactical fighter, with an excellent stand-up game, superb takedown defense, and great cardio.
Tracy Cortez is the girlfriend of the UFC 145-pound division title contender Brian Ortega, which additionally boosts her popularity.
Nowadays, she has around 420k followers, but this number changes every single day as she’s the owner of one of the fastest-growing MMA Instagram accounts in the world.
Conclusion
There are many beautiful girls in UFC, but very hot girls rarely reach title contention or championship status.
Rachael Ostovich, Liana Jojua, Aleksandra Albu, and other cute chicks are not here because they didn’t have a particularly good score in the most powerful promotion in the world.
Alexa Grasso and Ji Yeon Kim deserve an honorable mention though, as the two still have time to improve their MMA records.
