Gina Carano is a woman of firsts. In August 2009, Carano and Cris Cyborg were the first women to headline a major MMA event on Showtime. Before that, Carano was one half of the first women's MMA fight to be broadcast on live television in 2007. And before that, in 2006, she fought in Nevada's first sanctioned women's MMA fight.
And now, two decades after her first groundbreaking MMA moment, Carano, 44, has a unique opportunity to be a trailblazer again for a new audience. She and fellow women's MMA pioneer Ronda Rousey will close out the first mixed martial arts card promoted by Jake Paul's Most Valuable Promotions brand live on Netflix.
For many, this is an MMA dream fight and a generational clash in which the past is transported to an evolved present. It's the women's MMA version of Billie Jean King vs. Serena Williams, Lisa Leslie vs. A'ja Wilson or Laila Ali vs. Claressa Shields. Carano vs. Rousey in 2026 is both a historic and crowning achievement that celebrates women's MMA.
Even though Carano has embarked on a successful acting career in the nearly 17 years since her last fight, most notably as Cara Dune in the Star Wars series "The Mandalorian," she wants the opportunity to rewrite her history and remind people, including herself, why she was once recognized as the face of women's MMA.
"I get to revive and reveal the fighting side of me because a lot of people either forgot or weren't around the last time I fought," Carano told ESPN last month. "I've heard people say Ronda Rousey is fighting the girl from 'The Mandalorian.' No, I had a whole life that opened the doors to those movie opportunities, and it was me being a fighter, a genuine fighter who broke a lot of barriers. Everything I've gone through leading to this point already feels like a victory, but I'm not fighting Ronda just to say I fought Ronda Rousey. I'm fighting to win."
To win, Carano must summon something inside herself that has been dormant for nearly two decades. She'll need to tap into the version of herself that smashed male and female opponents in underground gym smokers for a few hundred dollars in her early 20s.
"She does not need to fight for money or fame. She does it because she is a natural-born fighter." Carano's coach and longtime friend John Wood told ESPN. "That translates over to her personal life. She's fought through a lot of things that would have crushed people."
Persevering through adversity has been a prevailing narrative of Carano's life.
"It's so interesting when some of the worst moments of my life have opened up the best opportunities," Carano said. "I am one of those believers that sometimes when you lose, you win and learn more about life. It just might take a while for you to understand and come to terms with it."
The first time Carano had to come to terms with that theory was when she suffered her first -- and only -- loss in MMA at the hands of Cyborg in a Strikeforce women's featherweight title fight. The heavy-handed Carano was no match for Cyborg, which resulted in a devastating stoppage with 1 second left in the first round. The Las Vegas native, whose rapid ascent helped put women's MMA on a pedestal, had been humbled. But without that experience, Carano wouldn't have found herself in a position to enter the next chapter of her life.
She had acted before in indie films and small roles, but a week after the loss to Cyborg, Carano said that a phone call from filmmaker Steven Soderbergh to her agent changed the course of her life when she was offered her first lead role in the action thriller "Haywire."
"I would have continued fighting if I beat Cyborg," Carano said. "I would have had to defend the title and wouldn't have had time to act. I can say now that I'm happy with how things went."
Although she spent the next 15 years establishing herself as an actress, she never announced her retirement from MMA. And it wasn't because she hadn't gotten around to it. It was because the fighter in her refused to allow that door to close. As the sport rose to new heights, Rousey transitioned from Strikeforce to the UFC in 2013, and in the back of her mind, Carano couldn't help but think that could have been her.
"Before I fought Cyborg, I had a meeting with [current UFC CEO] Dana White and [former UFC CEO] Lorenzo Fertitta and they were like, 'Do not fight Cyborg and come to the UFC,'" Carano said. "But I had given my word to fight Cyborg, and I come from a time where you show up and fight whoever is in front of you."
That meeting stayed with Carano over the years as she watched Rousey catapult to stardom well beyond the Octagon. Rousey was the evolution of what Carano created, a global phenomenon considered bigger, better and more popular than the prototype who had left for Hollywood. And maybe, Carano thought, she could come back, beat Rousey and take back what she felt was rightfully hers.
"For me, it didn't matter whether she fought again or not, but I wanted to make sure she either did it or was OK with not doing it," Carano's husband, retired kickboxer Kevin Ross, told ESPN. "What I didn't want was for her to be waiting and waiting and then one day wishing she had [fought] when it was going to be too late."
Carano was close to coming back to MMA "two or three" times over the years. A proposed 2014 UFC fight with Rousey was the closest she came to putting the 4-ounce gloves on one more time.
"That ball kind of got fumbled, and I said to myself that I wasn't going back to the fight world," Canao said. "And then I considered coming back another time, but the role for Angel Dust in 'Deadpool' came up and I knew I couldn't pass on that."
In 2019, Carano was cast as Cara Dune in the "Star Wars" live-action series "The Mandalorian." The high praise she received for the role was set to be parlayed into a lead role in a second series titled "Rangers of the New Republic." Before landing "The Mandalorian," Carano kept the door cracked for a return to fighting. However, considering the magnitude of being cast in a "Star Wars" franchise, the idea of fighting faded further into her rearview.
"Before I got that call, I said to myself that I needed to take myself more seriously as an actress and I have to let my old self go," Carano said. "For the first time, I did just that. I let my old self and the dream of fighting again go."
Little did she know, her biggest fight was yet to come.
Lucasfilm fired Carano from "The Mandalorian" in February 2021 after a series of controversial social media posts that the film studio deemed "abhorrent and unacceptable." Her termination sent her into a spiral. Carano told ESPN she was overweight, prediabetic, depressed and struggled to walk long distances without pain for the next three years.
She was losing her fight against her health, but tried to demonstrate bravery in the face of adversity with appearances and interviews.
"I was really trying to show the world that I wasn't going to let this moment beat me," Carano said. "Ronda saw those interviews and she was absolutely correct that I wasn't healthy, mentally or physically."
Ross, who met Carano in 2001 and married her in 2022, has been through it all with Carano. He was by her side as she rebounded from the loss to Cyborg at the precipice of her fighting career, but that was nothing compared to the turmoil she faced in the wake of losing "The Mandalorian."
"It felt like everyone was yelling at her, and that's a difficult thing to watch because you can't win that argument," Ross said. "She couldn't fight back and she had to walk that path herself. ... And most people let things like that destroy them, but the ones who really make a difference and leave their mark on this world are the ones that use wins and losses to get better."
Rousey, like Carano, saw her last MMA fight end in a brutal knockout loss. She took her loss hard, perhaps harder than Carano, and Rousey recognized in Carano's interviews the look of someone who was being beaten down by life. Pregnant with her second child late in 2024, Rousey felt compelled to try to lock in a blockbuster fight while also lending a helping hand to a fellow pioneer.
"Me and Gina both experienced going from America's sweetheart to the butt of a joke," Rousey said to New York Post Sports. "When I was nine months pregnant, I saw her in an interview where she wasn't in a good place or healthy. I knew that we could reclaim our bodily identities together and be the most-viewed MMA event of all time. We could rewrite our MMA endings together."
Rousey, enamored by the success of Mike Tyson's return to the boxing ring against Jake Paul in 2024, saw an opportunity for the two women's MMA legends to perform in front of a massive audience.
Most Valuable Promotions co-founder Nakisa Bidarian, who previously served as the chief financial officer in the UFC during Rousey's tenure, got a call from Rousey teasing a potential fight between her and Carano. Bidarian and Paul, who promoted the first all-women's boxing card on Netflix and recently signed a deal to bring women's boxing to ESPN through 2028, saw Rousey vs. Carano as a tremendous opportunity.
"I've known Ronda since the very beginning of her MMA career and her success is one of the main reasons Jake and I believed in the opportunity to invest in women's boxing," Bidarian told ESPN. "Ronda shared that she and Gina had reconnected and there was mutual interest in finally making the fight happen. Obviously, for anyone who has followed combat sports over the last decade, Rousey vs. Carano is one of the biggest dream matchups that never materialized.
"It checked every box for us: two iconic athletes, mainstream crossover appeal, cultural significance for women's combat sports, and the opportunity to deliver it on a platform like Netflix with true global reach."
Even before the fight was announced in February, Carano was back at Wood's Syndicate MMA gym in Las Vegas, shedding weight and getting into fighting shape. It didn't take long for Wood to realize that the old Gina Carano was back.
"When she showed up here, I really didn't know what I was getting," Wood said. "I was like, 'Geez, how far behind are we going to be?' But when she showed up, she hit the ground running. She came in guns blazing and I've had to slow her down. The speed and power are still there. She hits harder than half the guys in the gym. ... Don't be surprised if you see some crazy s--- happen in this fight."
Cyborg, who has gone on to win world championships in just about every major MMA promotion since she stopped Carano in 2009, said she likes Carano's chances against the most popular women's MMA fighter in the world.
"I am surprised to see Gina return at 44 years old, but she looks in great shape and seems to have taken preparations seriously," Cyborg told ESPN. "If she was going to return, I think fighting an opponent who is a big name and hasn't fought in 10 years was the best option."
While the fight is taking place in present-day MMA, where the sport has evolved to a true mixing of the martial arts, Cyborg sees a favorable matchup for Carano's Muay Thai vs. Rousey's judo.
"I don't really see this as Gina versus an evolved MMA fighter," Cyborg said. "Instead, I see this fight as a throwback to the type of fights we use to see 17 years ago: striker vs. grappler. Style vs. style. I think the Ronda that retired 10 years ago wasn't really an evolved MMA fighter like the women we see fighting a decade later, and that bodes well for Carano."
When Carano steps into the cage on Saturday, she will end a 6,100-day absence from the sport, trampling over the legendary Royce Gracie's seemingly unfathomable layoff of 3,184 days. She is on the precipice of ushering in a new era for MMA against Rousey. It's rare to be the first once in your career, but twice is almost unfathomable.
"I knew that this fight would be great, not only for her physical and mental health, but just her overall story," Ross said. "It's nice to see fighters potentially have another avenue and even more special that it's Gina and Ronda, the pioneers of women's MMA, to be the ones who open more doors at this stage of their respective careers."
While Carano is genuinely appreciative of the opportunity, there is also solace in soaking it all in. Whether this is truly the final fight of her career or not, she knows that everything she fought for can finally end on her terms.
"I can't wait to feel the music and the energy of the crowd. I want to feel that thing that I rarely felt before, but I know I'm going to access those feelings this time," she said. "It's just a centeredness, a goal in front of me, and nobody's going to stand in front of that goal. That's what I want. That is my moment."
Nearly 17 years ago, Gina Carano opened the door for mainstream women's MMA. Now she finally gets to walk back through it.
