Former UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili was shocked by how good Gina Carano looks in camp ahead of her Ronda Rousey fight.<\/p>\n
UFC Hall of Famer Ronda Rousey will make her highly anticipated return to Mixed Martial Arts almost a full decade after her star-studded run in the Octagon came to an end. After back-to-back losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes, Rousey seemed destined for a permanent retirement<\/a>, before Most Valuable Promotions knocked on the door and offered her the Gina Carano fight.<\/p>\n For Carano, it\u2019ll be her first combat sports appearance since an MMA loss to former UFC champ Cris Cyborg in August 2009. The 44-year-old is a legend in women\u2019s MMA history, winning her first seven professional fights and becoming a major part of women earning opportunities in the sport.<\/p>\n Despite Rousey\u2019s long layoff, she\u2019s entering the Carano fight as a significant favorite, due to the age difference and Rousey\u2019s dynamic grappling skill set. But one of Carano\u2019s recent training partners, former UFC bantamweight champ Merab Dvalishvili, is expecting a massive upset that could make the UFC look bad.<\/p>\n Merab Dvalishvili says Gina Carano \u2018the real deal\u2019 ahead of Ronda Rousey showdown<\/p>\n During an interview on The Ariel Helwani Show<\/a>, Dvalishvili made a surprising pick for the upcoming Rousey vs. Carano showdown after training with one of the pioneers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great honor for me to train with her. I was surprised with how good Gina is,\u201d Dvalishvili said of Carano.<\/p>\n \u201cRonda Rousey has a judo background, and I also do, but I think Gina Carano will win this fight. When she was fighting, I was really young and had never seen her fight before, but when I trained with her, I was so impressed and went back and checked everything. She\u2019s the real deal!<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to make UFC fighters look bad, and she\u2019s going to make Judo also look bad, but I think she\u2019s going to win,\u201d Dvalishvili continued on Carano. \u201cShe\u2019s training really hard\u2026I\u2019ve seen her body and her training change in this camp.\u201d<\/p>\n Carano is looking for her first professional MMA win since a unanimous decision win over Kelly Kobold in an Elite XC bout in October 2008. As for Dvalishvili, he\u2019s expected to return to the UFC Octagon later this year for a potential trilogy bout against Petr Yan<\/a>.<\/p>\n What is your prediction for Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano? Let us know in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili was shocked by how good Gina Carano looks in camp ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,44069,25363,785,15809,85,787],"class_list":["post-639608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-gina-carano","tag-merab-dvalishvili","tag-mma","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639608","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=639608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}