Ronda Rousey will go down in the history books for kicking open the door for WMMA in the UFC. She was the one that convinced the UFC to buy out rival promotion Strikeforce to get at her contract and swap Rousey into their promotion, adding multiple women’s divisions after UFC president Dana White said he’d never have women fighting there.
But according to Gina Carano, “Conviction” would have been first had she said yes to a questionably ethical and possibly illegal offer that White and former UFC owner Lorenzo Fertitta threw her way back in 2009.
“Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta, before the Cyborg fight but it had been announced, they had me come in to their old school office and sat me down,” Carano said on the Jaxxon Podcast. “And they’re like, ‘Look, we’d love for you to come over to the UFC and we can get you out of your contract.’ I think based on possible steroid use, maybe? And they were willing to fund the lawsuit against Strikeforce and everything to get me to go over there.”
Damn, that sounds like some tortious interference right there. Could they have pulled it off? Who cares, so long as Carano’s relationship with Strikeforce was ruined in the process and Strikeforce didn’t get the massive Cyborg vs. Carano fight. Unfortunately for them, Carano wasn’t willing to play ball.
“The fans were just so invested in me and Cyborg,” she explained. “And I was like, ‘I gave my word. I gave my commitment.’ It was my last fight on the Strikeforce contract. And I was like, ‘Maybe let’s talk after I fight Cyborg, but I’m going in, I’m not pulling out of this fight.’ Yeah. So they did want me to come in.”
Carano would lose to Cyborg in a largely one sided affair. Instead of re-signing with Strikeforce or going to the UFC, Gina would move on to Hollywood and attempt to kick off an acting career. The UFC would put their plans on bringing a woman into the UFC on pause until 2012, when Ronda Rousey started made waves.
Rather than attempt to bust Rousey out of her contract, the UFC instead bought Strikeforce out from under founder Scott Coker and absorbed all the top talent from the company into their roster. And the rest is history.