Something similar happened with Womens MMA a decade back as well. There were Women in Mixed Martial Arts for years prior, but it was such a niche that no one really watched much of it outside of some specialized events and promotions. Dana White, the owner of the UFC even famously said that there would never be Women who fight in the UFC.
But then there was a sudden uptick in not just the skill level, but straight up entertainment value. You had Women like Gina Carano, Miesha Tate, Ronda Rousey, Rose Namajunas, Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Megumi Fujii that really popularized it with promotions in Japan or Strikeforce in America and eventually the UFC realized it was actually profitable because it was entertaining.
Along with the personalities involved, and the novelty I guess, a lot of the Women's MMA matches at that time were just more... entertaining and watchable. With a lot of Male fights, the proportion just weren't as exciting while with the Women you had just as skilled competitors who really went at it and took risks and threw down while the Guys were busy cage humping and circling with jabs all the time. You'd watch some UFC events and be like... the best most entertaining fights on that card were actually the girls fighting. It wasn't universal, but generally speaking the Womens matches were just more exciting and entertaining to watch because they did more then the Guys on average.