This is a big weekend for women in sports - male-dominated sports, no less.
Last night, Ronda Rousey headlined a UFC event to debut female fighting for mixed martial arts' premier promotion, and today Danica Patrick is starting from pole position in the Daytona 500, another first for women in NASCAR's top racing series and most prestigious event.
Both are landmark achievements, and - win or lose - Rousey and Patrick will be forever shrined in history for these accomplishments.
Closer to home and on a smaller stage, women are also playing starring roles in the Canadian National Wrestling Association, which will return to Kelowna next Sunday for a 6:30 p.m. show at Rutland Centennial Hall.
Understandably, professional wrestling - be it WWE or CNWA - is not taken as seriously as MMA or NASCAR, but these women are very much at the top of their game as well. Granted it's more entertainment than sport, female wrestlers often appeal to the masses and possess abilities rivaling their male counterparts.
And much like Rousey and Patrick, these women are more than just pretty faces when the action begins.
Their looks are certainly part of the sales pitch, and plenty of fans are buying in based solely on that.
Rousey is a stunner, a 26-year-old blonde bombshell from California who isn't camera shy - check out ESPN magazine's latest Body Issue for a closer look, or consult your friend Google images.
Rousey does a good enough job selling herself with stories ranging from how her world champion judoka mother used to wake her up with armbars as a child, to the time she manhandled multiple men in a movie theatre brawl that started with a boot-throwing incident.
Rousey brings a brash - love or hate - personality backed up by an Olympic bronze medal in judo from the 2008 Beijing Games. Crowned the UFC's bantamweight (135-pound) champion without ever stepping into the Octagon, Rousey earned her reputation as the world's best female fighter by reeling off six straight victories - all, not ironically, via first-round armbar submission - in smaller promotions such as Strikeforce, which was purchased by the UFC in part for the rights to Rousey.
UFC president Dana White has been pumping her tires ever since and finally rolled the dice on Rousey's rise to fame by showcasing her in a main event ahead of 22 men, including several title contenders in their respective weight classes.
Adding to the intrigue of that sold-out card in Anaheim was Rousey's opponent, Liz Carmouche, the UFC's first openly gay fighter - another rarity in professional sports. It was sure to be a spectacle however long it lasted, with White calling it MMA's biggest attention grabber to date with the likes of HBO and Time magazine providing coverage of Rousey, who was recently ranked by Forbes in their top 30 under 30 sports figures.
There have been marketable female fighters before Rousey - from Gina Carano, formerly the face of women's MMA and an American Gladiator, to boxers like Mia St. John and Christy Martin - but White is convinced Rousey is the real deal and worth building a brand around.
Of course, a convincing victory on Saturday night would've shifted her mainstream popularity into overdrive.
Switching gears to Patrick, the 30-year-old brunette beauty has been swapping fender paint alongside men for more than a decade. She's been featured in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue and even declined an invitation to pose for Playboy a few years ago, but Patrick's work on the track is driving her momentum these days.
Sure, she has only one career win - the Indy Japan 300 in 2008 - but Patrick has earned a laundry list of accolades as the first female to record a variety of racing feats - not to mention she's the most popular driver everywhere she goes.
Patrick won IndyCar's rookie of the year award in 2005 and she went on to claim three poles and seven podiums in that discipline before making the permanent move to NASCAR last year. It hasn't been the smoothest of transitions, with only two poles and seven top-10 finishes through 70 races to date, but Patrick can cement her status as the most successful woman in the history of American open-wheel racing by prevailing at Daytona today.
Falling short of that, her stock will steer skyward regardless, having already proven she can keep up with the boys.
All outcomes considered, it'll be fun to watch Patrick, Rousey and those aforementioned wrestlers continue to thrive as women competing in a man's domain.
Larry Fisher is a sports reporter for The Okanagan Sunday.