Who is Ronda Rousey? Ahead of her Netflix match against Gina Carano, let’s take a closer look at the athlete. Ronda Rousey’s career has covered more ground than almost anyone in modern sport, from Olympic judo mats to the UFC octagon, the WWE ring, and the Hollywood screen. Now, eight years after her last MMA fight, she is stepping back into competition on May 16, 2026, in one of the most talked-about matchups of the year.
Who is Ronda Rousey?
Ronda Rousey, born February 1, 1987, in Riverside, California, is a former UFC women’s bantamweight champion, Olympic bronze medalist, WWE superstar, and actress who is widely credited with putting women’s MMA on the global map. Now 39 years old, she is set to return to competition on May 16, 2026, in a Netflix-exclusive MMA event against Gina Carano.
Ronda Rousey’s Judo Career
Before anyone knew her name in combat sports, Rousey was a judoka. She competed at the 2004 Athens Olympics at just 17 years old, becoming the youngest American judoka to appear at a Games at the time. Four years later at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she defeated Annett Boehm by yuko in the bronze medal bout to become the first American woman in history to win an Olympic judo medal.
Her path to that medal wasn’t easy. In the quarterfinals, she faced Dutch former world champion Edith Bosch, who had previously dislocated Rousey’s elbow twice in 2007, and was forced into overtime before being eliminated. She then fought through the repechage bracket, winning three consecutive bouts to claim bronze. The year before the Olympics, she had also reached the final of the 2007 World Championships at under-70kg, earning silver. Her mother, AnnMarie De Mars, had been the first U.S. woman to win a World judo title just 24 years earlier.
Ronda Rousey’s MMA Career
Rousey made her amateur MMA debut in August 2010 and won via armbar in 23 seconds. She won all three of her amateur fights by armbar, all inside one minute, before turning professional. Her pro debut came in March 2011 at a King of the Cage event in Tarzana, California, another armbar, another first-round finish.
She signed with Strikeforce and worked her way to a title shot against Miesha Tate in March 2012, submitting Tate by armbar in the first round to claim the Strikeforce bantamweight belt. By November 2012, the UFC came knocking, and Rousey became the first woman to ever sign a contract with the promotion. Rather than fight for the inaugural title, Dana White simply named her the first UFC women’s bantamweight champion.
Her first UFC fight, against Liz Carmouche at UFC 157 in February 2013, was also the first women’s bout in UFC history. She won by armbar at 4:49 of the opening round. What followed was a string of five more title defenses, including a rematch win over Miesha Tate, a 14-second submission of Cat Zingano at UFC 184, and a 16-second TKO of Alexis Davis. By the summer of 2015, she stood at 12-0 and had defended the belt six times in the UFC alone.
Influence in the UFC
Rousey’s arrival in the UFC reshaped the organization. Dana White had famously said women would never compete in the UFC, and then she headlined a card and became one of the promotion’s top draws within a year. Her fights drew television audiences and pay-per-view numbers that rivaled the men’s division, and she became a fixture in mainstream sports media, landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated and appearing in the SI Swimsuit Issue in 2015, the first MMA fighter to do so.
Ronda’s UFC Departure
What Happened to Ronda Rousey? The run ended in November 2015 at UFC 193 in Melbourne, when Holly Holm knocked her out with a head kick and follow-up punches in front of 56,000 fans, the largest crowd ever to watch a UFC event at the time. Rousey did not fight again for over a year, and when she returned at UFC 207 on December 30, 2016, Amanda Nunes stopped her in just 48 seconds with ground-and-pound.
She never officially announced her retirement from MMA, but she never fought again. In a 2024 Instagram Live session ahead of the release of her memoir Our Fight, Rousey revealed that a long history of concussions, many of which she had kept secret during her judo and MMA career, had made it impossible to continue competing at the top level. “I just couldn’t fight at that top level anymore, and I couldn’t take those impacts,” she said, adding that her exit came at a time when she had “never been stronger or faster.”
Ronda Rousey in the WWE
Rousey made a surprise appearance at the 2018 Royal Rumble and confronted Raw Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss, SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair, and Asuka. She signed a full-time WWE contract and debuted in an actual match at WrestleMania 34 in April 2018, teaming with Kurt Angle to defeat Stephanie McMahon and Triple H — submitting McMahon with her signature armbar.
She went on to win the Raw Women’s Championship at SummerSlam 2018 by defeating Alexa Bliss, and later captured the SmackDown Women’s Championship, the Raw Women’s Championship, and the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships alongside Shayna Baszler. She competed in the first-ever all-women’s main event at WrestleMania 35 against Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair. After a betrayal by Baszler at Money in the Bank 2023, Rousey stepped away from WWE, posting on Instagram that Baszler was “the reason I got into this business” and that she had “no reason to stay.”
Ronda Rousey Movies and TV Shows
Hollywood took notice of Rousey while she was still UFC champion. Her first film role was Luna in The Expendables 3 (2014) alongside Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham, making her the first woman to appear in that franchise. She followed that up as Kara in Furious 7 (2015) alongside Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson. She also starred in Road House (2015), taking the Patrick Swayze role in the remake, and appeared as herself in the Entourage film (2015). On television, she hosted Saturday Night Live on January 23, 2016, with musical guest Selena Gomez, and had guest roles on Blindspot (NBC) and Drunk History (Comedy Central). She also appeared in the 2018 film Mile 22 as agent Sam Snow.
Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano
Two of the women most responsible for building women’s MMA as a mainstream product are finally meeting in the cage. Discussions about a potential fight between Rousey and Carano reportedly took place as far back as 2014, but scheduling conflicts and weight class differences prevented it from happening. Carano, a former Muay Thai competitor (12-1-1) and MMA fighter (7-1), was known as the “Face of Women’s MMA” before Rousey’s arrival.
She retired after losing to Cris “Cyborg” Justino via TKO in August 2009, a fight that was the first time two women headlined a major MMA event. She moved into acting, most notably appearing in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, before landing a role on The Mandalorian, a role she was later fired from in 2021 following controversial social media posts.
The fight is promoted by Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), the company co-founded by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian, and marks Netflix’s first-ever live MMA event. The bout is confirmed as a professionally sanctioned featherweight contest at 145 lbs, contested under the Unified Rules of MMA in a five-round, five-minute format with 4oz gloves inside a hexagonal cage.
Fight Date, Time, and How to Watch – When is the Ronda Rousey Fight?
The event takes place Saturday, May 16, 2026, live from the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California. The main card goes live at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT, with the Netflix broadcast starting at 1:00 AM UTC. The event streams exclusively on Netflix at no additional cost to subscribers. The co-main event features Francis Ngannou vs. Philipe Lins at heavyweight, while the card also includes Nate Diaz vs. Mike Perry. Rousey enters the fight with a 12-2 professional MMA record; Carano enters at 7-1, her last fight having come 17 years ago.
With May 16 fast approaching, the fight gives Rousey a rare second act in a sport that rarely hands them out. Win or lose, the occasion itself speaks to just how large a figure she has been in combat sports, and the fact that Netflix is betting its first live MMA event on her name says everything about the pull she still carries. For Carano, it is a chance at redemption after years away from the cage. For fight fans, it is the matchup that should have happened a decade ago.
