One of the pioneers of women’s MMA, Gina Carano hasn’t stepped foot in the cage since August 2009, so she realizes it’s now or never if she plans on making a comeback.
The 31-year-old fighter-turned-actress appeared on Thursday night’s edition of…
One of the pioneers of women’s MMA, Gina Carano hasn’t stepped foot in the cage since August 2009, so she realizes it’s now or never if she plans on making a comeback.
The 31-year-old fighter-turned-actress appeared on Thursday night’s edition of The Arsenio Hall Show and revealed that she has never lost the passion to fight and is actually meeting with UFC president Dana White next week (transcript per MMA Fighting).
I love it. It’s something I can do that makes everything else disappear. I dream about it. I just didn’t know if I was ever going to get placed with the opportunity to make a comeback. So I’m either going to do it now or retire and say, I’m never going to do it. So now is the moment. … There’s not a workout that I go through that I’m not fighting somebody in my mind. And it’s never gone away.
While there will be no “bikinis only, jello MMA match” on the horizon, it appears that the star of action flick In the Blood (in theaters Friday) is still interested in reaching the pinnacle of the sport.
While Carano has never competed inside the Octagon, she is technically still under UFC contract since she competed under the Strikeforce banner, which was bought out by the UFC’s parent company—Zuffa, LLC—in March 2011.
Carano was 1-1 in Strikeforce, winning a unanimous decision over Elaina Maxwell in December 2006 and suffering a TKO at the hands of Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino in August 2009—the only loss of her career.
Also worth mentioning is that Carano hasn’t competed at bantamweight (135 pounds) since June 2006 and has competed as heavy as a 150-pound catchweight in December 2006.
Therefore, it would be interesting to see how difficult it would be for Carano to make bantamweight almost eight years later—the only women’s weight class that currently exists in the UFC.
Would signing Carano be a good move or little more than a publicity stunt by the UFC?
JohnHeinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
You’ve seen the poster and you’ve seen the trailer — now watch this complete nightclub fight scene from Gina Carano‘s upcoming action movie, In the Blood. Are there Superman-punches? Yes. Is there an armbar? Yes. Does the armbar make the same generic “thump” sound as the Superman-punch, for some reason? You’d better believe it. Do we get a flash of Carano’s undies as she rolls around on the floor, which happen to match her red dress? Yeah, bro. Do a trio of basic bitches attack Carano one-by-one after she’s destroyed a dozen full grown men, as if *hair-pulling* might be her weakness? Don’t ask.
And yes, as long as Gina Carano keeps insisting that she might return to MMA one day, we’re going to keep talking about her.
You’ve seen the poster and you’ve seen the trailer — now watch this complete nightclub fight scene from Gina Carano‘s upcoming action movie, In the Blood. Are there Superman-punches? Yes. Is there an armbar? Yes. Does the armbar make the same generic “thump” sound as the Superman-punch, for some reason? You’d better believe it. Do we get a flash of Carano’s undies as she rolls around on the floor, which happen to match her red dress? Yeah, bro. Do a trio of basic bitches attack Carano one-by-one after she’s destroyed a dozen full grown men, as if *hair-pulling* might be her weakness? Don’t ask.
And yes, as long as Gina Carano keeps insisting that she might return to MMA one day, we’re going to keep talking about her.
After 20 days of wild speculation and calculated innuendo, I honestly can’t decide if it’s more difficult to imagine a world where Ronda Rousey next defends her UFC women’s bantamweight title against Gina Carano or one where she doesn…
After 20 days of wild speculation and calculated innuendo, I honestly can’t decide if it’s more difficult to imagine a world where Ronda Rousey next defends her UFC women’s bantamweight title against Gina Carano or one where she doesn’t.
At this point, both seem equally preposterous.
And equally possible.
In their unwavering refusal to die, rumors of Carano vs. Rousey officially became the Rasputin of unconfirmed MMA stories this week. Carano herself fanned the flames Monday, telling Fox Sports’ Damon Martin she’d be “very open” to resuming her fighting career if the “circumstances” (read: money and workload) were to her liking.
“I feel like I can’t say too much,” Carano teased. “I’ve got all this information that if I could just speak freely, this is actually what’s going on. … I think to sum it up in a nice, safe way for me is, if circumstances were right (I would come back) because my first love is MMA.”
So there you have it. We’ve now heard from each of the principals in this big-budget melodrama. Rousey says she’s in (at 135 pounds or a catchweight), UFC President Dana White says it’d be a no-brainer and now Carano—if we can read between the lines a bit—says if the world’s largest MMA promoter fills her swimming pool with Scrooge McDuck money, she might dive back in.
Everyone has been very careful to remind us that nothing is finalized, but the obvious assumption is that now it’s just a matter of getting all those very large numbers to fly in formation. It’s all still very hypothetical, but more and more, it’s starting to look like a megadeal might actually be possible.
How you feel about that probably depends on which side of the equation you’re on.
From the inside looking out, it’s easy to see the appeal of this fight. These are professionals we’re talking about, after all. The very least surprising aspect of this story is everyone’s apparent willingness to sign on for a slam-dunk pay-per-view hit.
Carano clearly has wares to sell—her newest movie drops on April 4—but if her IMDB page is to be believed, her future calendar looks pretty wide open. With the popularity of female MMA currently sky-high, a meeting with Rousey might constitute both her biggest available payday and her best chance for extended exposure.
Plus, despite the fact she hasn’t fought in five years, Carano remains a fighter in her head and in her heart. It’s possible she exists in a world where she actually has a chance to win.
To Rousey, meanwhile, Carano no doubt represents the most advantageous kind of matchup: big money accompanied by very little risk. She’ll be off this summer making the Entourage movie and last week told Fox Sports’ Marc Raimondi that her fondest wish for her next Octagon appearance is to “come out completely unscathed and just go straight from the fight to the red carpet.”
If that’s her mindset, Carano fits the bill.
For people who don’t stand to directly profit from this fight, however, things look a little different. If you like your UFC as a place where the best take on the best and championship opportunities always go to the most deserving, this bout shapes up as a bitter pill to swallow at $54.99 a pop.
Fight fans literate enough to appreciate both women’s resumes do not expect any contest between them to be competitive. In fact, it’s tempting to say the proposition of this fight more succinctly lays bare the gap between MMA the sport and MMA the for-profit entertainment venture than any other in recent memory.
For the record, there would be nothing wrong with Carano returning to fight in the UFC’s bantamweight division, assuming she can make the weight. But fast-forwarding her into an immediate title shot? Or even a catchweight bout against the best female fighter in the world? That’s impossible to justify, at least from any standpoint that concerns actual athletics.
The last time she fought was August of 2009, at a different weight and in an organization that no longer exists. Oh yeah, and she lost.
As long as we view Cris “Cyborg” Justino, Holly Holm and Cat Zingano as the most credible threats to Rousey’s crown, a fight against Carano would be dismissed as a cash grab—and a fairly audacious one at that. Especially so long as the UFC professes to have no interest in Justino or Holm, both of whom continue to toil on the independent circuit.
But again, there’s nothing wrong with booking a fight simply because it stands to make everybody a lot of money. The trick is, you have to get people to tune in.
As long as hardcore fans’ bellyaching about mismatches and beauty pageants doesn’t prevent us from actually lining up to buy the PPV, our objections can only carry so much weight.
In the end, our desire (or lack thereof) to see Rousey fight Carano probably has a lot to do with what kind of fights we like to spend our money on and what kind of MMA world we want to live in.
While fight fans are supposed to believe a showdown between UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano is beyond the realm of possibility, the potential matchup sure is a big conversation starter.
In a media scrum prior to the…
While fight fans are supposed to believe a showdown between UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano is beyond the realm of possibility, the potential matchup sure is a big conversation starter.
In a media scrum prior to the UFC 171 weigh-ins, “Rowdy” told reporters that she is all for squaring off with one of the pioneers of women’s MMA, per Fox Sports’ Marc Raimondi:
The former Olympic-medal winning judoka also wouldn’t mind if her title was on the line in a potential bout with Carano:
White has not directly shot down reports that backroom meetings are taking place to finalize a Rousey vs. Carano bout, although he has brushed off the notion that the fight is in the cards, per MMA Fighting.
Additionally, he has acknowledged that Carano, who hasn’t fought since August 2009, still has four fights on her Zuffa contract (the UFC’s parent company) leftover from her Strikeforce deal.
Rousey is 9-0, with nine finishes, as a professional mixed martial artist. She most recently scored her first TKO over Sara McMann at UFC 170 in February.
Carano holds a 7-1 record inside the cage. Her sole loss came at the hands of Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino, who is quickly becoming Rousey‘s top foe.
John Heinis is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
Interesting news out of the UFC Fight Night 37 post-fight press conference regarding Gina Carano’s fighting future. UFC President Dana White, when asked about the oft-rumored return of the original face of women’s MMA, Gina Carano, that the f…
Interesting news out of the UFC Fight Night 37 post-fight press conference regarding Gina Carano‘s fighting future. UFC President Dana White, when asked about the oft–rumored return of the original face of women’s MMA, Gina Carano, that the fighter-turned-actress still has four fights remaining on her contract with Strikeforce.
This is interesting news for those clamoring to see her return to fighting, as it essentially means that Carano is already signed as a UFC fighter. The only thing blocking her from making a return to the cage, then, would be whether or not she actually wants to return to action.
Carano rose to stardom as one of the most heavily promoted fighters in the now-defunct EliteXC promotion. There, she became a popular personality and the biggest name among female mixed martial artists. When EliteXC was bought out by Strikeforce, she wound up as rival-by-default to fellow female fighter Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos (now fighting under her maiden name, Justino), who would beat her into retirement with a 4:59-long mauling.
While the rumors have been swirling for a while now, Carano and her camp have been tellingly silent regarding a return.
Carano effectively left MMA in order to focus on her acting career. This has included starring in her own action movie, Haywire, as well as bit parts in movies like Fast and Furious 6 and Blood and Bone, as well as TV shows like Almost Human and American Gladiators. Not only that, but she has an upcoming starring role in a film adaptation of Rob Liefeld’s Avengelyne comic series.
Suffice it to say that any talk regarding Carano’s return is completely speculative at this point. Regardless, Bleacher Report will bring you all the updates as they become available.
UFC President Dana White, who once said women would “never” fight in the UFC, suddenly finds himself caught in a swirl of questions concerning his promotion’s future with the female divisions.
After UFC commentator Joe Rogan teased a “huge” anno…
UFC President Dana White, who once said women would “never” fight in the UFC, suddenly finds himself caught in a swirl of questions concerning his promotion’s future with the female divisions.
After UFC commentator Joe Rogan teased a “huge” announcement concerning the women’s division in the UFC, fans and critics sounded off with speculation from all corners.
Regarding this last matchup, White had this to say after Friday’s UFC Fight Night 37 weigh-ins (quotes courtesy of MMAjunkie.com):
“If she [Carano] wanted to fight in the UFC, of course. If Gina Carano wanted to fight in the UFC, we would definitely do it.”
While this bodes well for those seeking an eventual matchup between Rousey and Carano, White added that nothing is finalized and that there is no immediate course of action for any side.
“Guys, I have no idea,” White said when he was originally asked about future plans stemming from Rogan’s teaser. “I have literally avoided every conversation about this since Joe Rogan went on the radio show and speculation was Gina Carano…there’s nothing done as far as her [Rousey’s] next opponent.”
While the Carano rumor is juicy and would almost certainly perform well at the box office, it makes little sense for Rousey and the UFC’s women’s bantamweight division as a whole.
Carano went 7-1 in her MMA career, which spanned from 2006 to 2009, but she fought most of her career at 140 pounds, where she repeatedly missed weight.
In her final outing against Cyborg, she fought at featherweight, and, while she made weight, she was promptly demolished in the first round.
Rousey, on the other hand, is comfortable at 135 pounds, and she has fought three times inside the Octagon since her UFC debut in February 2013.
Still, if White’s sentiments are any indication, the UFC is not opposed to bringing Carano on board. They know she sells, and they know people would tune in to watch her fight.
What do you make of White’s statements? Would you want to see Carano face Rousey inside the Octagon? Does she deserve the opportunity?
After 20 days of wild speculation and calculated innuendo, I honestly can’t decide if it’s more difficult to imagine a world where Ronda Rousey next defends her UFC women’s bantamweight title against