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There Are Calls To Ban 'Octagon Girls' For Melbourne's UFC 243 Event

There Are Calls To Ban 'Octagon Girls' For Melbourne's UFC 243 Event

It has the support of the Melbourne Lord Mayor and Victorian Premier.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

There's only 25 sleeps until the UFC 243 event arrives in Melbourne, where fans will get to feast their eyes on Robert Whittaker take on Israel Adesanya and Nadia Kassem fight Ji Yeon Kimin the main events.

However, there could be one glaring omission from this event compared to other UFC battles.

There is a growing chorus of people who want Octagon Girls scrapped from the Aussie fight. The girls are a staple of most fighting sports and they're in charge of informing everyone what round it is, in case they'd forgot.

PA

It's been a part of mixed martial arts for decades, however the recent boxing fight between Jeff Horn and Michael Zerafa in Bendigo made a big change.

Bowing to pressure from local councillors and women's groups, according to Channel 7, organisers used men instead of women.

This same pressure is being applied to UFC 243 and even has the support of Victorian premier Daniel Andrews.

"The [Melbourne] Grand Prix did the right thing in ending the use of grid girls and we encourage other events to make similar moves,'' a spokesman for Mr Andrews told the Herald Sun.

PA

"We have come a long way in making sport more accessible for women and girls - events have a powerful message to send when it comes to the representation of women in sport and the community."

It's also got the backing of the Melbourne Lord Mayor.

Sally Capp said: "It's 2019, do we really still need scantily clad women to wander around the middle of a fighting ring between rounds?"

As Mr Andrews' spokesman mentioned, the F1 made the decision to get rid of Grid Girls from their events, which sparked some pretty big outrages.

PA

The Formula One powers that be released a statement, saying: "Over the last year we have looked at a number of areas which we felt needed updating so as to be more in tune with our vision for this great sport.

"While the practice of employing grid girls has been a staple of Formula 1 Grands Prix for decades, we feel this custom does not resonate with our brand values and clearly is at odds with modern day societal norms.

"We don't believe the practice is appropriate or relevant to Formula 1 and its fans, old and new, across the world."

If this ends up becoming the norm: every UFC or boxing match flocked with comments about Octagon or Ring Girls, then they could be scrapped altogether.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: SPORT, Entertainment, Australia