The much-hyped sit-down meeting between women’s MMA pioneer Gina Carano and UFC president Dana White takes place Wednesday night.
MMA Fighting reported the news Tuesday evening.
Carano, in the midst of a media tour promoting her new movie—In the Blood (which opened on Friday)—has expressed her interest in resuming her career as a professional mixed martial artist.
“It’s something that I’ve always loved to do and it’s been such a genuine expression for me,” she said regarding fighting in an interview on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson earlier this week.
“Crush” has been absent from the cage since a lopsided TKO loss to Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino in August 2009 under the Strikeforce banner.
Despite the recent inactivity from the cage, Carano is technically still under UFC contract since the UFC’s parent company—Zuffa, LLC—bought out Strikeforce in March 2011.
According to White, Carano still has four fights left on that contract in question, though as recent as a month ago, he didn’t think a comeback was in the cards, per MMA Nuts.
The 31-year-old bombshell has traded in the gloves and rash guards in favor of feature movie roles in action flicks such as Haywire and Fast & Furious 6 over the past couple of years.
Carano (7-1, four finishes) hasn’t competed at bantamweight in nearly eight years and fought as heavy as a 150-pound catchweight back in December 2006, her Strikeforce debut.
Despite those facts, the big box-office draw has been recently linked to UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, with the “Rowdy” one herself even entertaining a temporary move to featherweight to make the matchup a reality, per MMA Junkie.
With Carano and White meeting up to discuss brass tacks Wednesday evening, could we see Carano ink a new UFC deal before the end of the week?
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
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