![\"Ronda](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1_MMA-US-ROUSEY-CARANO-NETFLIX-WOMEN.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe former UFC women’s bantamweight champion needed just seconds to beat Gina Carano in a record-breaking performance on her return to the cage this past weekend<\/p>\n
Ronda Rousey’s win over Gina Carano smashed a long standing Conor McGregor record(Image: AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Ronda Rousey<\/a> proved she’s still a global star after Netflix<\/a> revealed 17million people watched her MMA comeback.<\/p>\n The former women’s UFC<\/a> bantamweight champion established herself as one of the biggest names in the sport during the peak of her powers. The American won and defended the coveted 135lb title six times before giving up on the sport in 2016 following back-to-back defeats by Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.<\/p>\n But after a 10-year hiatus from the cage, ‘Rowdy’ picked up the gloves once again this past weekend against fellow women’s MMA trailblazer Gina Carano in the headline act of Jake Paul’s debut MMA show. The sheer gulf in class was on full display as Rousey needed just seconds to submit her opponent.<\/p>\n Despite the rather brief dust-up, people were glued to their screens to watch Rousey in action once again. The fact that the showcase was free-to-air with a Netflix subscription certainly helped MVP’s chances of succeeding. Arguably, the biggest draw in the history of MMA is Conor McGregor<\/a>, but Rousey’s destructive win on Saturday night toppled any of the Irishman’s accolades.<\/p>\n FOLLOW OUR FIGHTING FB PAGE! Latest boxing and MMA news, analysis and much more via our dedicated Facebook page<\/a><\/p>\n READ MORE: Nate Diaz handed immediate six-month ban after brutal defeat by Mike Perry<\/a>READ MORE: Conor McGregor vs Max Holloway fight rules look set to favour one man<\/a><\/p>\n At least 4.3m tuned into his crossover boxing<\/a> clash with Floyd Mayweather<\/a> in 2017, while the biggest fight in the history of the UFC – Khabib Nurmagomedov vs McGregor – drew in 2.4m viewers. The Irishman’s second and third fight with his long-time rival was both watched by over a million people. In 2016, the former dual-weight UFC champion avenged his defeat to Nate Diaz – a fight which was watched by 1.6m. It’s worth noting that the aforementioned figures were on pay-per-view – a model which the UFC has ditched following their $7.7 billion deal with Paramount.<\/p>\n In terms of free-to-air MMA action, Rousey’s demolition of Carano smashed UFC on Fox 1 – when Junior dos Santos scored a stunning knockout over Cain Velasquez to win the heavyweight title, an event which peaked nearly 9m viewers in America. Kimbo Slice’s epic clash with James Thompson on EliteXC nearly 20 years ago was watched by over 7.2m people, while Rashad Evans’ decision win over Phil Davis was watched by 6.7m fans. Sitting not too far below Evans’ clash with Davis, Tito Ortiz’s stunning knockout over Ken Shamrock on the Ultimate Fighter 3 Finale was watched by 6.5m viewers.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Jake Paul and Ronda Rousey in agreement over Conor McGregor fight<\/a>READ MORE: Conor McGregor comeback opponent and fight date announced<\/a><\/p>\n In a statement credited to Paul and MVP CEO Nakisa Bidarian, the company revealed that they are committed to staging more MMA events in the future following the success of their first show. “We’re incredibly proud of what was accomplished alongside our partners at Netflix and grateful to the athletes who helped make MVP MMA’s debut such a success,” the statement began.<\/p>\n “We’ve received an overwhelming amount of interest from investors, strategic partners and fighters who want to be involved with MVP and the future of MVP MMA. We are currently reviewing all strategic options to do something very meaningful within MMA on a go-forward basis with distribution partners like Netflix that share our vision to create lasting impact.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former UFC women’s bantamweight champion needed just seconds to beat Gina Carano in a record-breaking performance on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,15809,85],"class_list":["post-682703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-ronda-rousey","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682703","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=682703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}