JAXXON podcast<\/a>. \u201cWe fought really hard to make our fight five-minute rounds. All of them were three [minute rounds] before. So yeah, I\u2019m kind of just jumping in.\u201d<\/p>\nThis is not technically true, as Carano\u2019s second pro fight came against Rosi Sexton and also had five-minute rounds; however, her five fights in Strikeforce before the Cyborg bout were all three-minute round bouts, showing just how much things have changed since last she fought.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just the changes to the rules that are different for Carano; it\u2019s the entire sport. Carano says when she was coming up, things were much more haphazard than they are nowadays.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWell, to be very honest, I was a bit crazy, a little out of my mind in my 20s,\u201d Carano said. \u201cI was fighting out of a place of survival. I was fighting out of a place of \u2014 nobody ever really game planned me for a fight. Nobody ever sat me down and was like, \u2018OK, this is your opponent, this is what you\u2019re going to do.\u2019 It was always me going and being like, \u2018OK, get up from the bottom.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why when you see the Cyborg fight, I\u2019m like [jumps back, surprised]. I jumped off. I had mount, and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m going to get up now.\u2019 \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we did. From the moment I started, we\u2019d go to smokers, and you just show up and fight whoever\u2019s in that gym. I remember showing up one time to a smoker, and there was this dude, very intimidating, weighing in at 165, and I was probably around 145 at that time. \u2026 At smokers, you just fight the person that\u2019s there, and then the dude turned, it was a girl, and I was like, \u2018Shit.\u2019 That was the only person in my weight class. It just ended up being a funny thing where \u2026 I hit her twice and kicked her twice, and she got out of the ring and walked out of the smoker. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cBut like, no. Nobody ever planned me. We\u2019re game planning now. \u2026 It\u2019s really cool to actually have a game plan for a specific opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Whether having a game plan will make a difference for Carano remains to be seen. By the time she and Rousey fight, she\u2019ll be 44 years old and admittedly returning to action from not being in the best shape. While Rousey also hasn\u2019t fought in nearly a decade, she\u2019s still five years younger and much closer to her physical peak than Carano is, not to mention being a more accomplished fighter already. But for those expecting Rousey to breeze through her come May, Carano has other ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she thinks she\u2019s going to roll over me, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case at all,\u201d Carano said. \u201cThat\u2019s not how it\u2019s played out in my mind. The way it\u2019s played out in my mind, that\u2019s not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot has changed in MMA since the last time Gina Carano laced up the gloves. Carano is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,16557,786,44069,120709,785,15809,272796,85,272797,152901],"class_list":["post-551447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ca","tag-fighting","tag-gina-carano","tag-inglewood","tag-mma","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-rousey-fight","tag-sports","tag-womens-mma-fights","tag-womens-mma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}