Gina Carano and Ronda Rousey are ending their respective retirements to face each other on May 16 at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, CA.
The 39-year-old Rousey will collide with the 43-year-old Carano in a five-round featherweight (145 pounds) showdown under Jake Paul’s MVP Promotions live on Netflix. It will be MVP’s first MMA event and Netflix’s first live MMA broadcast.
Rousey (12-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) won her first 12 career MMA fights by finish, including nine submissions and three knockouts. She won Strikeforce’s women’s bantamweight championship with a first-round submission win over Miesha Tate.
Rousey defended her belt once with a first-round submission win over Sarah Kaufman. After convincing Dana White of her star power over dinner one night, the UFC announced its first woman’s fight and named Rousey the promotion’s first women’s bantamweight champion.
Rousey faced Liz Carmouche in the UFC 157 main event in the Octagon’s first female scrap on Feb. 23 of 2013. After nearly being submitted by Carmouche in the first minute, Rousey rallied and got an armbar stoppage with 11 seconds remaining in the opening stanza.
Rousey defended her strap again in a thrilling rematch vs. Tate, finishing her with a third-round submission (armbar) in the UFC 168 co-main event. She had won her first seven career fights by armbars in the first round, so Tate was the first lady to get beyond the opening frame with ‘Rowdy.’
Rousey would go on to successfully defend her title with first-round finishes of Sara McMann, Alexis Davis, Cat Zingano and Bethe Correia, needing only 66, 16, 14 and 34 seconds, respectively, in each contest.
Rousey’s next opponent was former champion boxer Holly Holm, who transitioned from boxing to MMA in 2011 and won her first seven fights with six finishes. Next, ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ signed with the UFC and won her first two scraps to earn a title shot.
Rousey and Holm headlined UFC 193 in Melbourne, Australia, on Nov. 15 of 2015, with Rousey installed as an enormous favorite in the -750 to -900 range. But from the opening moments of the fight, it was all Holm, who stung Rousey with strikes in the first 30 seconds that she never recovered from.
Holm dealt her a kickboxing clinic through the entire first round, bloodying her badly with punches and multiple elbows. She rocked Rousey again in the opening moments of Round 2, closing the show with a nasty headkick and follow-up punches 59 seconds into the stanza.
Rousey didn’t do any media after the loss, covering her entire battered face in the airport with a large, white pillow as she was swarmed by media in her return to America.
Holm would lose her first title defense to Tate in the UFC 196 co-main event. Tate then lost to Amanda Nunes by first-round KO in the UFC 200 headliner.
That set up a Nunes-Rousey showdown at UFC 207 on Dec. 30 of 2016. In an unprecedented move that hadn’t happened before or since in UFC history, White allowed Rousey to avoid all media before the fights, promising that she’d face the press after the fight whether she won or lost.
Well, she lost… in convincing fashion. Nunes destroyed Rousey with a violent flurry that had her out on her feet before referee Herb Dean ended the lopsided contest just 48 seconds into the bout.
To this day, Rousey has never taken questions about her defeats from MMA media members. She bolted into retirement, married former UFC heavyweight contender Travis Browne and had two kids.
Rousey also dipped her toes into professional wrestling with the WWE from 2017-2023. She briefly returned later that year before a second retirement in 2025.
In a few national media appearances with Opra-like interviews, Rousey consistently expressed bitterness toward MMA fans and media as if she had been betrayed by both groups. With each delusional remark, her popularity among MMA fans waned.
Carano (7-1 MMA) won her first seven professional fights, competing under the EliteXC banner four times and once with Strikeforce before being booked to face Cris Cyborg for the Strikeforce featherweight belt on Aug. 15 of 2009.
Carano lost by TKO to Cyborg with one second left in the first round. She was set to return against Sarah D’Alelio in 2011, but the bout was eventually cancelled.
In 2014, White convinced Carano to leave Hollywood, where she was thriving as an actress, and come out of retirement to face Rousey. Carano verbally agreed to do so but asked White to keep it quiet while she found a new MMA team and planned her comeback that would include six months of training.
However, White pissed Carano off when he hinted at her return and a showdown with Rousey to media members. She hadn’t found a new team yet and wasn’t ready to commit to the bout.
The relationship and any trust Carano had in White had been ruined, and the fight never materialized.
BetOnline has Rousey installed as a -400 favorite, leaving Carano with +330 underdog odds.
Rousey chimed in this morning with a post to her X account (formerly Twitter):
Been waiting so long to announce this: Me and [Gina Carano] are gonna throw down in the biggest super fight in women’s combat sport history! And we’re partnering with the fighter-first promotion [MVP] as well as the baddest streamer on the planet [Netflix]! This is for all MMA fans past, present and future. More to come… much more ;)