Gina Carano endured her toughest challenge outside the cage before making her long-awaited return to combat sports against Ronda Rousey earlier this month.
Carano (7-2) returned to competition for the first time in 17 years at Most Valuable Promotions’ debut event at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, which streamed live on Netflix. Ahead of the fight, the former MMA star reportedly lost 100 pounds in preparation for the comeback.
Despite the dramatic transformation and months of preparation, the fight itself lasted just 17 seconds. Rousey (13-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) quickly secured top position before finishing Carano with her trademark armbar submission in the opening moments of the bout.
Speaking on The Ariel Helwani Show this week, Most Valuable Promotions co-founder Nakisa Bidarian praised Carano’s effort and said he hopes the 44-year-old will consider fighting again under the MVP banner.
“Gina deserves a lot more than what happened last Saturday night,” Bidarian said. “And going into this, I said this to the people closest to me, my biggest fear for (her) was she'd worked so hard to get to where she'd gotten to, but she hadn't had the opportunity to work hard at where she'd gotten to, right?”
Bidarian explained that much of Carano’s training camp focused on physically transforming herself back into fighting shape after nearly two decades away from the sport.
“It was a process to re-transform back to the fighter that she was,” he said. “But by the time she got there, it was a few weeks away from fight night.”
According to Bidarian, a second training camp could allow Carano to perform at a much higher level now that she has already completed the physical rebuilding process.
“Now she's a fighter again,” he continued. “Give her a full camp as a fighter, not as someone who's becoming a fighter again. And I think you'll see who she really is and I hope she considers doing at least one more with us.”
While MVP appears interested in bringing Carano back, Bidarian suggested the same may not apply to Rousey, who has publicly indicated that her return was likely a one-time appearance.
“In terms of Ronda, I think she's been very vocal, very clear, very transparent,” Bidarian said. “This was one and done for her. We haven't heard anything different, nor am I aggressively trying to convince her differently, because you never want money, for example, to be the reason someone does something.”
Bidarian added that he briefly discussed the possibility of another fight with Rousey, but the former UFC champion has so far shown no interest in extending her comeback.
“I've brought it up to her and she's told me she's not interested,” he said. “So I've kind of left it at that.”
Still, Bidarian acknowledged that circumstances could always change, especially with fellow former champion Holly Holm set to compete later this month.
“Now, maybe one day she wakes up and says, 'You know what, let's do this,'” Bidarian said. “Maybe she sees Holly Holm on May 30th, live on ESPN, and says, 'I want to get that back.' I don't know, but that's up to her.”
