Prior to his epic victory over Carlos Condit on Saturday night for the UFC welterweight championship, Georges St-Pierre had a few words regarding the potential of women’s mixed martial arts finally making it to the UFC stage.

Basically he said that while it’s great for their side of the sport and for their careers in general, he’s not too keen on the idea of women beating each other up.

“For the woman fight, I say it’s good for her, and I mean for the girls that fight. But me personally I have a hard time watching the girls fight. In my heart I have, you know, it’s the way I grew up maybe, the mentality is different, I’m old school. [I] have a hard time watching girls fighting; it’s hard for me. I never really watched a woman fight, but I know they are pretty good.”

Not the first male fighter to have this view (see: Matt Hughes), GSP’s comments drew a response from former Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight champion Miesha Tate, who took his comments to heart.

“I think the problem with GSP’s view with WMMA is that he doesn’t have one. If he hasn’t ever watched us women fight then he can’t say how he really feels about it because he’s ignorant. Being old-fashioned is fine, but us “modern day” girls aren’t asking for your protection, we are asking for your acceptance and we are fighting for equality.”

Tate went to say that the sport of MMA in general wouldn’t exist if everyone had the UFC welterweight champion’s attitude.

“If everyone felt about MMA as GSP thinks he feels about WMMA, then he wouldn’t have a job. I’m hoping Georges St-Pierre can open his mind a little bit and actually watch some women’s fights. We’re coming to the UFC for a reason and it would be nice to have one of all-time favourite fighter’s support. It won’t take long for him to realize we aren’t these fragile little creatures when we enter the cage, we are warriors and every bit as deserving of the respect as the men.”

While St-Pierre was almost certainly not looking to offend any female fighters with his comments, it does go to show that with women’s MMA is now coming to the forefront more than ever before, approaching the grandest stage of them all. Like most newly introduced aspects of the sport, it will likely take time before the world accepts WMMA as much as the male side.

Some people just don’t like seeing women getting punched in the face, even if those women are trained martial artists that could take out many of the male competitors in MMA.

What is certain is that with the women’s 135lbs. division coming to the UFC soon, being an MMA fan has never been more exciting.