{"id":481335,"date":"2026-02-17T19:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481335\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T19:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:34:09","slug":"gina-carano-and-ronda-rousey-will-fight-sanctioned-mma-bout-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/481335\/","title":{"rendered":"Gina Carano and Ronda Rousey will fight sanctioned MMA bout in May"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gina Carano<\/a> is a trailblazer in women\u2019s mixed martial arts. Her final professional fight was in 2009, four years before women began competing in UFC.<\/p>\n

Ronda Rousey<\/a> was UFC\u2019s first female fighter, its first women\u2019s bantamweight champion and the first woman inducted into its Hall of Fame. Her final professional MMA fight was in 2016.<\/p>\n

The two MMA legends will come back May 15 at Intuit Dome for a fight that will stream live globally on Netflix. Tickets are on sale March 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeen waiting so long to announce this: Me and Gina Carano are gonna throw down in the biggest super fight in women\u2019s combat sport history!\u201d Rousey said<\/a> in a statement Tuesday morning. \u201c… This is for all MMA fans past, present and future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The featherweight bout will be professionally sanctioned under the Unified Rules of MMA with five rounds at 5 minutes each. The fighters will use 4-ounce gloves and will face off inside a hexagon cage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an honor,\u201d Carano said in a statement. \u201cI believe I will walk out of this fight with the win and I anticipate it will not come easy, which I welcome. This is as much for Ronda and me as it is for the fans and mixed martial arts community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carano started her fighting career in Muay Thai (12-1-1) before transitioning to MMA. She won her first seven fights (three by knockout, one by submission) before losing to Cris Cyborg by technical knockout (4:59) in Strikeforce\u2019s first women\u2019s championship bout.<\/p>\n

She hasn\u2019t fought since, instead focusing on her acting career. After appearing in the first two seasons of \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d as the character Cara Dune, Carano sued Walt Disney Co. and Lucasfilm, alleging she had been wrongfully terminated from the show and discriminated against because of views she expressed on social media posts. The two sides settled the lawsuit<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n

Rousey won a bronze medal in judo at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before becoming an MMA superstar. She won six UFC women\u2019s bantamweight title bouts before retiring from the sport, then became a WWE triple-crown winner before stepping away from professional wrestling in 2023. She published a graphic novel<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

It turns out both women weren\u2019t entirely done with MMA.<\/p>\n

\u201cRonda came to me and said there is only one person she would make a comeback for and it has been her dream to make this fight happen between us,\u201d Carano said. \u201cShe thanked me for opening up doors for her in her career and was respectful in asking for this fight to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fight will be Netflix\u2019s first live MMA event. It is also the first MMA bout to be promoted by MVP, which was founded by influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul and former UFC executive Nakisa Bidarian in 2021 and has produced 30 live boxing events.<\/p>\n

Paul has gone 12-2 (seven knockouts) since becoming a professional boxer in 2020. His December 2024 unanimous-decision victory over Mike Tyson was Netflix\u2019s first live boxing event. It is said to be the most-streamed sporting event ever, peaking at 65 million concurrent streams with an estimated average minute audience of 108 million live viewers worldwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cMVP has always been driven by disruption and delivering the biggest moments in combat sports on a global scale, and today we are officially bringing that energy to MMA for the first time,\u201d Paul and Bidarian said in a statement. \u201cRonda Rousey and Gina Carano are the two most formative figures in the history of women\u2019s MMA; they are the icons who shattered the glass ceiling and helped build the foundation this sport stands on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gina Carano is a trailblazer in women\u2019s mixed martial arts. Her final professional fight was in 2009, four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,194607,1138,641,194606,194605,146728,1153,26560,194608,638,175188,194604,1316,4623,1867,82,640,6771],"class_list":{"0":"post-481335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-combat-sport-history","11":"tag-fight","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-fighting-career","14":"tag-first-live-mma-event","15":"tag-gina-carano","16":"tag-knockout","17":"tag-may","18":"tag-mixed-martial-art","19":"tag-mma","20":"tag-mma-bout","21":"tag-mma-fan","22":"tag-netflix","23":"tag-paul","24":"tag-ronda-rousey","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-ufc","27":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}