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Fair point on JJ's absurd implants - which slipped my mind. Though I don't know what personal circumstances motivated her. Lots of different targets when you optimize sex appeal. It's possible she was seeing the end of her career and wanted to be sexier for the final catch.
My point was that those sports do things that are clearly for titillation e.g. how female volleyball players dress compared to men. In MMA women either dress equally modestly (given existing norms about male-female modesty) or dress more conservatively (from a gender-blind perspective).
And then they go engage in a traditionally masculine activity that is not known to improve anyone's beauty, let alone a woman's.
MMA is...not a good sport for that. Because it pays less at the low end, comes with significant potential physical downsides that affect your sex appeal and is also mainly not a self-feeding sport: people in MMA got there through something else, usually a lifetime of training something else. Something that avoids at least some of these problems (e.g. grappling poses less of a risk to your pretty face).
Mackenzie Dern was already hot. She could have been a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instathot. Her sex appeal is not improved by getting punched in the face, I don't care what feminists say; that sort of "empowerment" isn't hot.
How bout: plenty of women will use their sexuality as suits them. Attractive athletes will leverage it where they can but it's probably not why they were training at 13. Ronda Rousey didn't give up her youth becoming a judoka to launder and leverage her sexuality I don't think (she did it, like many, cause that's what her mother wanted). But, when she got famous, she did leverage her "hot - for sports" nature.
TBH she could have just dressed provocatively rather than ruin her knees trying to place in Judo. Works for most women.
Oh, I'm well aware of /r/MMA's crush on Valentina. That's why I said "even Shevchenko".
She's "sports-hot" and gets simps for that reason. But my general perception of her is not as an Thot and not that the UFC promotes her that way.
She's promoted (or was promoted) on the grounds of being a technical (some might say "boring") fighter. But, tbf, I don't really follow her Instagram besides the general idea of her as a jet-setting, multilingual, gun-toting, James Bond-esque badass. Maybe I missed things.
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