A lot has changed in MMA since the last time Gina Carano laced up the gloves.
Carano is a pioneer in women’s MMA in every sense of the word. She started in MMA before most major organizations had women’s bouts and was one of the primary reasons behind the early growth of women’s MMA. But after a brief career in the 2000s, Carano retired following her loss to Cris Cyborg in 2009 and has not fought since.
All that changes next month, though, when Carano returns to action for the first time in 17 years, taking on fellow WMMA pioneer Ronda Rousey in the main event of the Rousey vs. Carano MVP MMA card on Netflix on May 16. Seventeen years is a long time off, and especially in this case, as the last time she fought, women’s MMA fights were often only three-minute rounds.
“I’ve only ever fought one five-minute round, and that was another first, was the Cyborg fight,” Carano told the JAXXON podcast. “We fought really hard to make our fight five-minute rounds. All of them were three [minute rounds] before. So yeah, I’m kind of just jumping in.”
This is not technically true, as Carano’s second pro fight came against Rosi Sexton and also had five-minute rounds; however, her five fights in Strikeforce before the Cyborg bout were all three-minute round bouts, showing just how much things have changed since last she fought.
But it’s not just the changes to the rules that are different for Carano; it’s the entire sport. Carano says when she was coming up, things were much more haphazard than they are nowadays.
“Well, to be very honest, I was a bit crazy, a little out of my mind in my 20s,” Carano said. “I was fighting out of a place of survival. I was fighting out of a place of — nobody ever really game planned me for a fight. Nobody ever sat me down and was like, ‘OK, this is your opponent, this is what you’re going to do.’ It was always me going and being like, ‘OK, get up from the bottom.’
“That’s why when you see the Cyborg fight, I’m like [jumps back, surprised]. I jumped off. I had mount, and I was like, ‘I’m going to get up now.’ …
“That’s what we did. From the moment I started, we’d go to smokers, and you just show up and fight whoever’s in that gym. I remember showing up one time to a smoker, and there was this dude, very intimidating, weighing in at 165, and I was probably around 145 at that time. … At smokers, you just fight the person that’s there, and then the dude turned, it was a girl, and I was like, ‘Shit.’ That was the only person in my weight class. It just ended up being a funny thing where … I hit her twice and kicked her twice, and she got out of the ring and walked out of the smoker. …
“But like, no. Nobody ever planned me. We’re game planning now. … It’s really cool to actually have a game plan for a specific opponent.”
Whether having a game plan will make a difference for Carano remains to be seen. By the time she and Rousey fight, she’ll be 44 years old and admittedly returning to action from not being in the best shape. While Rousey also hasn’t fought in nearly a decade, she’s still five years younger and much closer to her physical peak than Carano is, not to mention being a more accomplished fighter already. But for those expecting Rousey to breeze through her come May, Carano has other ideas.
“I think she thinks she’s going to roll over me, and I don’t think that’s the case at all,” Carano said. “That’s not how it’s played out in my mind. The way it’s played out in my mind, that’s not the case.”
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