Carano returns from 17-year break, faces Rousey
LOS ANGELES—The idea of returning to any professional sport after a break of nearly 17 years seems preposterous.
Doing it in a sport as dangerous as mixed martial arts (MMA)? Gina Carano realizes it seems like something that could—maybe should—only happen in the movies.
Carano is doing it anyway on Saturday night, when she fights Ronda Rousey in the main event of Netflix’s first MMA show. Their bout could be the most-watched combat sports event of the year and it puts the 44-year-old Carano back under the competitive spotlight she left in 2009, when she was 27.
The trailblazing fighter built and lost a high-profile acting career in the lengthy interim, but an offer from Rousey and a revelatory return to MMA training have altered her perspective on what’s possible and what’s important in life.
“I think this fight is happening right when it should,” Carano said this week after she was cheered at a promotional public workout on famed Venice Beach. “Right now, I’m in such a solid place. I had to go through life in order to get here and maybe other people get there a little bit younger. But for me, I’m a little bit of a late maturer. It happened for me now and I’m so happy.”
Carano actually knows plenty about Hollywood—and about Hollywood endings, too.
Carano was one of the most famous fighters from the early days of MMA, when the violent sport struggled for legitimacy and media attention in the 2000s. She was the first woman to become a crossover star, with her face on CBS and Showtime several years before the UFC began promoting women’s fights with Rousey’s ascendance.
A week after Cris Cyborg stopped Carano in August 2009 in the first women’s bout to headline a major MMA event, she got a call from film director Steven Soderbergh, who had seen her fight on TV. He hired Carano to star in “Haywire,” a superb action thriller that catapulted her toward bigger and bigger roles in the years to come.
Although acting took over her life, Carano never forgot about martial arts—and she grinningly points out that she never retired.
She still trained to keep fit and because her husband and longtime partner, Kevin Ross, is a now-retired kickboxer. She occasionally entertained offers for a comeback, but the timing and the money were never right.
Instead, she became passionate about watching the professional sport, even hosting parties at her home for MMA events.
“When I was able to step away from mixed martial arts, I became such a fan,” Carano said. “And now to be back around it and to have Ronda and (comain event fighter) Nate (Diaz) and people that I had some sort of connection with in the past, but now being on their card and fighting one of them, I’m still a fan, (but) it’s pretty wild to be able to be here and be a part of it.”
Training has changed in the past decade-and-a-half—and so had Carano, who felt a mid-life grounding and focus she never had before.
“Oh man, it’s been hard,” Carano said. “Training has been grueling, but it’s just the consistency—once you give into the fact you’re going to get up and dedicate yourself to this every single day until you fight and you’re responsible for that.”
