LAS VEGAS – To say Dana White has high hopes for the UFC’s new women’s division would be an understatement at this point.

The UFC president has made it well known that it took him a while to get on board with having women in the UFC. But Ronda Rousey changed his mind.

Still, as with anything, there are detractors. But White isn’t worried about them or the main event of UFC 157.

UFC 157 takes place Feb. 23 at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., and is headlined by the first women’s fight in UFC history between bantamweight champ Rousey (6-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) and Liz Carmouche (7-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC).

This past week in Chicago, White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) the UFC will kick into high gear to promote the fight after Saturday’s UFC 155 pay-per-view, including the typical pre-fight ancillary programming, such as “UFC Countdown.”

But White also expects Rousey’s debut to potentially break MMA ground with new audiences that haven’t touched the sport before.

“As this thing starts to get closer, you guys will start to see the UFC being talked about and stories being done in places that have never (done UFC stories) before in the history that we’ve owned this company,” White said. “Ronda will be in places that have never been done for MMA before. To me, that’s already a success.”

Although the Rousey-Carmouche fight is the only women’s bout booked by the UFC so far, and there have been rumblings that the company is waiting to see how the fight does before pushing forward with other announcements for the women’s division, White said those will come in due time.

“What we’re doing is, we’re actually doing a round table with a bunch of media with all the girls that will be in that division,” White told MMAjunkie.com. “Trust me – we’ve got plans. It’s funny that people still f—ing doubt us.”

And those doubts have to do with putting Rousey-Carmouche as the main event of a pay-per-view to begin with. The fact is that an untested commodity in the UFC is being counted on to sell a major card in a major market.

The detractors have wondered why Rousey-Carmouche is ahead of Dan Henderson vs. Lyoto Machida. The answer, of course, is one’s a title fight, and the other is not.

White said he’ll make no expectations for how well the card will do when it comes to pay-per-view buys. A recent report that the gate had only hit $750,000 worth of tickets, he said, was misleading in that it didn’t call enough attention to what he said is a ticket response that is ahead of the most recent UFC show at the Honda Center.

“People are saying, ‘This is going to be the biggest pay-per-view disaster ever,’ White said. “Honestly, I don’t know what it’s going to do. On pay-per-view, who knows what it’s going to do. But take that away, and it’s a great card. If you’re pissed off and you don’t like women’s fighting, don’t watch the last f—ing fight. The rest of the card has a bunch of great fights on it.

“I’ve seen Ronda fight, I’ve been to a Ronda fight, and it’s pretty damned exciting. If you’re a fight fan, if you’re really a fight fan, you’re probably going to watch. If you’re a jackass who just likes to talk on the Internet and write stupid stories, you’re probably going to do that, too.”

For more on UFC 157, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

(Pictured: Ronda Rousey)