Gina Carano shared her side of the matchup with Ronda Rousey falling through.
MMA women’s pioneer Gina Carano was rumored to be gearing up for a return to competition a few years ago. She did hold discussions with the UFC president Dana White who offered her a million-dollar fight against Ronda Rousey. ‘Conviction’ had switched over to acting with her final bout coming in August 2009.
Carano needed time to prepare for her return after almost a decade out.
Gina Carano felt “instantly disrespected” by the UFC in Ronda Rousey fight talks
In an appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Gina Carano opened up about how close she came to fighting Ronda Rousey. The 40-year-old was in “very serious” talks with the UFC but stepped out of the offer following an unfavorable environment for her.
“What I had told Dana and Lorenzo at that time was, ‘I don’t have a team, I don’t even have an idea of a team. I don’t have a gym, I didn’t have any connection to where I would do this fight camp,’
“I knew with the way and everything it would take me three months to get the weight stabilized and then it would take me four months to actually be in fight camp, just to get back into it.
“I asked Dana if he could just please keep it quiet, don’t bring up my name, give me the time, I felt like six months.”
Carano asked White to keep the developments quiet, a request he didn’t oblige.
“But Dana, you know dude, he was like, ‘and I’ve got Gina Carano and it’s going to be against Ronda Rousey.’ He started pumping it up on Twitter and he pumped it out in interviews. I was like, ‘whoa, calm down.’
“First of all, I don’t even know who I’m going to train with so now you’ve made it harder for me to walk into a gym and just get comfortable with people. Cos now everybody knows I’m looking for a team, I’m looking for something. It made everything so much more difficult. That’s where we didn’t get along for a second.”
Carano pins blame on Dana White
Gina was not content with how her return to fighting was playing out. She felt like the hype had made it harder for her to find a genuine team and ease herself back into competition.
She referred to a hostile message from White that proved to be the last straw in the negotiations.
“(Dana) said something pretty aggressive over text messages. He does that, I was just like, ‘okay, I’m not going to do that,’ it was very simple for me, that was going to be something for me, I was excited to be back in that world, to do something like that.”
“I respect Ronda and I thought that I was exciting but you just can’t go back into that world and feel instantly disrespected on so many levels.”
“I don’t need to be disrespected so that’s how that story went.”
Ronda Rousey had recently stated that she would only return to MMA for Gina Carano. Although it likely won’t happen in the sport we might get to see them share the big screen.
