MMA legends Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano to un-retire, square off in five-round fight this May

Ronda Rousey (12-2, 9 KOs) and Gina Carano (7-1, 3 KOs), two of the biggest names in women's mixed martial arts history, will un-retire and meet on May 16 in Los Angeles for a fight at the Intuit Dome, Most Valuable Promotions announced on Tuesday.

The fight between the 39-year-old Rousey and the 43-year-old Carano will take place in a hexagon cage over the course of five five-minute rounds and will stream live on Netflix.

Rousey's last MMA fight came in December 2016 when she was knocked out by Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 -- her second consecutive knockout loss -- and she was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2018. Carano last fought professionally in August 2009, when she suffered the first and only loss of her career to Cris Cyborg in a Strikeforce event.

Since then, Carano moved over to the movie world, most notably starring in films like Fast & Furious 6 and Deadpool. Rousey likewise tried her hand at acting and became a WWE superstar, where she had a pair of reigns as champion before leaving the promotion in 2023.

"Ronda 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," Carano said in a press release. "She thanked me for opening up doors for her in her career and was respectful in asking for this fight to happen. This is an honor. I 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. What a time to be alive."

"It didn’t take long for opponents to figure out she was one trick and develop a strategy to avoid it."

It wasn't nearly that simple.

First of all, when Dana White hired Rousey, he created the UFC's women's division expressly for her. For years he had claimed he wasn't interested in women's MMA because the just couldn't fight. Something about Rousey made him change his mind.

The talent pool at first was very shallow and as she gained popularity, he hired better fighters, more credible opponents, away from the competing promotions. For the better part, the opponents she had at the beginning were anything but the cream of the crop. Once White started investing in the expensive talent, her opposition grew much stronger.

Second, her coach had her start mixing it up more. Initially she only punched in order to get close to set up the arm bar. Beginning with the Alexis Davis fight, she switched to using punching as an offensive tool to its own end.

Rousey knocked Davis out in 16 seconds, the 2nd fastest KO in UFC history to that date, mostly because no one expected her to employ punching in that fashion.

Based on an ultra-quick knockout, her coach kept having her punch with bad intentions. Two fights later, she KO'd Bethe Correia (with punches) in half a minute, which reinforced her coach's belief that she was on the right track.

But her next fight was against Holly Holm, a polished professional with considerable experience (and success) in both professional boxing and professional kickboxing. It was a YUGE mistake for her coach to tell her she could bang with Holm because her two punching KOs were against tomato cans, and Holm was anything but.

Third, in the end, with the talent she had attracted to the UFC it was inevitable she would meet her match soon enough but it wasn't over-reliance on the arm bar that did her in, it was going away from her bread-and-butter and pretending she could bang.

She now claims she was prone to concussions because she'd been hit in the head so many times in her judo career, but it seems a bit suspicious she waited 10 years to point that out.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.