Issue 162

December 2017

Before Ronda Rousey, Gina Carano was the star of women’s MMA. Gareth A Davies discovers she’s still got that fighting spirit.

Gina Carano sits with me as the clock ticks towards boyfriend Kevin Ross’s fight for the Bellator Kickboxing featherweight title. Before he’s due to step in the ring, he makes his way over, they hug and kiss, and she wipes away tears.

This is the same Gina Carano who was a trailblazer in MMA and who, in 2006, received an offer from late World Extreme Fighting promoter Jamie Levine to participate in the first sanctioned female bout in Nevada.

It’s the same Carano who starred in the cult film Ring Girls, which told the story of five American women from Las Vegas who challenged Muay Thai fighters from Thailand – featuring real fights. The Gina Carano who was one of the stars of MMA’s explosion onto American network TV. The Gina Carano who challenged Cris ‘Cyborg’ Santos in Strikeforce. Gina ‘Conviction’ Carano.

The desire to fight, says Carano, who gives very few interviews these days, has really never left her. But now she settles for watching. She admits it is painful to watch people you love getting ready to fight and, as Ross’s contest gets closer and closer, memories of the emotions that go along with competing start to return to her.

“I think you’d much rather be the person getting punched than the person having to watch someone getting punched,” explains the 35-year-old. “I sympathize with a lot of people who have loved ones out there. It’s not fun. Actually, my dad, my stepmom and my sister have all watched me fight before, and I’ve put them through every emotion I’m going through right now. It’s almost payback.

“When a person is in the ring, you just want to take that pain and that pressure. It doesn’t matter who their opponent is. It never did matter. It matters that Kevin has a ton of pressure on himself right now.

"He’s fighting in America in very close proximity to where he’s been training. It’s hard. I think mental pressure – and the emotions and mentality that go with that – is the worst thing on the planet. It’s the biggest beast.”

She recalls her dramatic superfight with the current UFC featherweight champion and, while doing so, reveals a vulnerability few in the fight game are prepared to acknowledge. “When I fought Cyborg, my entire body was disconnected from my cognitive state. What happens is you either have to figure out what the problem is, or there are medications that help you relax a little bit. Even when fans come up to me and they are nervous and shaking, you better believe I’m shaking worse than them. I’m a mirror.”

In the pantheon of MMA greats, Carano has a place. Combining looks, charisma and toughness, she was the perfect spearhead for organizations to promote as the face of women’s MMA and attack the mainstream market. Carano, a pioneer long before Ronda Rousey was out of long socks, helped other female fighters get noticed.

“We were the back-alley fighters,” she explains. “But there was older, older school and I couldn’t take credit without recognizing there were many women that came before me and were much more hard-core than me. Angela Parr, I have to give a lot of credit to her. At the point I came around, people were interested. I was signing with EliteXC and they said we’ll pay you $10,000. But they had a much older-school kind of woman called Erin Toughill and she wasn’t as active as I was. Basically, I got signed because I was more active.

"That worked out for everyone and I got her a job on American Gladiators later because I always thought she was a great character.”

It was with the EliteXC promotion that Carano became a star, first on the premium cable platform of Showtime, then on CBS as MMA hit network TV for the first time and millions watched. In the end, thanks in large part to her star power, she was part of the first women’s fight to headline a major MMA event when taking on ‘Cyborg’ in August 2009.

That, however, was the last time we’d see the Texas native in the cage. She left for Hollywood and has appeared in major motion pictures, including The Fast and the Furious franchise, Marvel’s Deadpool, and a starring role in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire.

Fighting on film has been fascinating for Carano, not least with Michael Fassbender, who she tangled with on Haywire.

“I think he’s by far one of the most genius, beautiful… I can’t describe him in a way that would be more respectful,” she says. “I will adore him forever. When I came on the movie as someone who had never acted, this person who dedicated his life to this craft saw me for what I was.

"I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t earned anything. It was like me meeting someone who was thrust into mixed martial arts and hadn’t even taken a class.

“But you know what he did? He sat there, put a whiskey in front of me and he said, repeat after me. Let’s go through this fast. Let’s go through this slowly. But on top of that, he went above and beyond on a small independent film and I spent so much time with him. Today he’s my favorite actor. I absolutely adore him. If anyone ever says anything bad about him, I’ll kick them in the nuts or the vagina!”

By this point, Carano is professing nerves ahead of her boyfriend’s bout, so I requisition two double shots of tequila and we send them down the hatch. Moments later, she reveals the warrior inside her remains.

“I actually like fighting and training. That’s my therapy,” she says. “I’m going through a hard, emotional thing right now and my first reaction was that I want someone in the gym to beat the f**king s**t out of me, so I can tell my brain that’s what pain is and that’s what physical pain is. To level me out a bit. I don’t know if that’s normal or healthy but that’s what I wanted.”

The desire to compete is still there, too, bubbling beneath the surface. A blockbuster match with Ronda Rousey was mooted for December 2014, but an agreement with the UFC was never reached. She reveals she was dead serious about it, though.

“I came back and wanted to start training for a fight. That was a couple of years ago. I don’t know if you ever get over fighting if you’ve done it before. I’ll probably be 60 in a basement and say, ‘I’m ready for that comeback.’ Or I could be 36 and be like, f**k you. You never know.”

For now, Carano reckons fighting and sparring is for therapy and, ironically, healing. It’s a way of regulating herself. “I want to go and get on the treadmill and I want to go and spar, I want to go and have somebody impact me,” she says. “I want to hurt myself. I think it’s just a fricking natural way of being. I believe it’s natural. Whatever it is, your body’s telling you I’m hurting, how can I fix it? I’m feeling strong, how can I exert it?”

Tonight, though, is about Ross and his impending fight. Ross got Carano into fight sports and she, he explained earlier, inspired him to get disciplined and change his wayward life. Then, following some 10 years apart, having been a couple in their early 20s, they’re back together.

“Kevin’s somebody I met 16 years ago,” Carano explains. The first time we met we looked into each other’s eyes and he was clearly a very quiet man. I looked him in his face and I thought I’m going to go inside and take a double vodka shot with him and see if I can loosen him up. I’m actually definitely not that vocal.

"I’m an introvert. I have social anxiety like a motherf**ker. We met each other and he’s the only person in my life whose eyes I can look into for such a long time and not say any words. That’s all I needed.

“I didn’t know if I was going to end up back with him, but he inspires me. We’re just like a normal couple, but we’re complete opposites. I wear my heart on my sleeve, he goes completely introverted with everything.

“Tonight, he’s fighting for a Bellator championship. I don’t care who he’s fighting. I don’t care if he wins or loses. I just care that he walks out of that ring and can look me in the eyes and tell me he gave everything he had. That’s all I care about. With the obstacles and sacrifices he has endured to get here, people don’t go through that. He’s a special person.”

It’s a word Ross also used to describe Gina. Special. And should you be fortunate enough to spend time with the pair, you’ll realize it’s an appropriate way of describing their relationship, too.

“I left him, he contacted me for 10 years, and I never thought we’d end up back together,” explains Carano. “I came to him actually because Muay Thai and mixed martial arts have saved my life. He has been my peace. He has been my grounding. I came to him when I was hurting. He never, ever held it against me. He always accepted it. I always found him or he found me. Ten years later, we ended up back together. He is my rock and inspiration.”

Ross’s fight is now just minutes away and Carano is having kittens. She leaves, then cheers long and loud for her man when he enters the ring, calling on him to use his jab, find his rhythm. Kevin Ross won his fight and they rejoice together afterwards.

Mixed martial arts might have lost Gina Carano to the silver screen, but there’s no doubt she’s still at home when in a fighting environment.