Ronda Rousey’s comeback to MMA surprised many when the news broke Tuesday, but one factor remains more unexpected than most — the fact that Rousey’s first fight since 2016 will take place not in the UFC, but rather on a Netflix event promoted by Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) brand.
Rousey, 39, is set to face fellow women’s MMA trailblazer Gina Carano, 43, in a five-round featherweight bout on May 16 inside Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome. The long-coveted pairing serves as the main event of Netflix’s first foray into live MMA.
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Rousey is a UFC Hall of Famer and one of the biggest stars the promotion has ever produced. An Olympic medalist in judo, she famously played a pivotal role in UFC CEO Dana White opening the doors for women to compete inside the Octagon. She then defended her UFC women’s bantamweight title six consecutive times from 2013-15, establishing herself as one of the most famous athletes of her generation.
In the years since her retirement, the prevailing assumption has always been that any potential Rousey comeback fight would obviously take place in the UFC, considering her significant connection to the brand. And according to Rousey herself, that was indeed the initial plan.
Rousey told ESPN’s “SportsCenter” on Tuesday that she first pitched the idea of a Carano fight to White months ago to gauge the UFC’s interest. That pitch, Rousey said, “didn’t exactly work out.”
“I was nine months pregnant, and I saw a video of Gina Carano giving an interview and she didn’t look good. She gained an unhealthy amount of weight and my first thought was like, ‘Oh my god, what can I do? What can I do to help?’ And the reason why I had that thought was because she’s the one woman, not only in MMA, that doesn’t owe me a damn thing but that I owe immensely. And I’m always trying to look out for what I could do for her.
“When I was in a similar spot, when I was depressed and gave up on the world and inadvertently gave up on myself, what I needed was a goal and something to reignite my passion again. And I always said that Gina’s the one person that I would come back to fight for, and I thought, ‘You know what, she needs this. She needs this fight.’ And the more that I thought about it, I was like, ‘You know what? I need this. I really need this fight.’ And I reached out to Dana [White] and asked him if he would be interested in it — and it didn’t exactly work out with the UFC, but it led us to here today.”
In the annals of women’s MMA history, Carano was essentially Rousey before Rousey. In 2007, her and Julie Kedzie competed in the first-ever women’s fight televised on Showtime. Two years later, Carano made history again when her and Cris Cyborg became the first women to headline a major MMA event.
Carano retired following that fight — a first-round TKO loss for the Strikeforce featherweight title — however her and Rousey have been linked together as a potential dream matchup since the beginning of Rousey’s UFC championship reign. UFC made several attempts to coax Carano back to MMA for the era-spanning bout during Rousey’s peak, most notably in 2014, although those attempts ultimately failed.
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Said Rousey:
“This has been in the making since I was pregnant, which is over a year ago. So it took a long time to get us here, and it’s such a long story, I can’t really keep it short for you, but we fought for this. We fought to fight each other. And there were a lot of obstacles along the way. And I told her, ‘If I have to go out there and train you myself to fight me, I will.’ And we made it happen. We had to work together to overcome every obstacle to get here — and it’s really surreal because it’s been a secret for so long, I can’t believe I’m actually able to talk about it.
“I might not have as much collagen or cartilage as I had in the past, but I have more knowledge than I ever have, and I really feel like it’s my technique and my wittiness inside the cage that always set me apart. That’s why whenever I get my hands on somebody, they never get up again. And I’ve never been better in that way.”
Rousey (12-2) last competed in a loss to Amanda Nunes in late 2016, while Carano (7-1) has been inactive since her 2009 loss to Cyborg. Combined, the two have gone 26 years between professional fights.
