The bombshell announcement that former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey was returning to the cage dropped on Tuesday. That would have been news enough, but her opponent raised eyebrows. “‘Rowdy” takes on fellow women’s MMA pioneer Gina Carano on May 16, and the fight will air on Netflix.
The matchup was Rousey’s idea and the deal didn’t come together quickly. During an appearance on SportsCenter, she explained how the fight materialized.
Rousey, 39, last fought in December 2016, losing to Amanda Nunes via TKO at UFC 207. Carano, 43, hasn’t fought since August 2009, losing to Cris Cyborg by TKO for the inaugural Strikeforce Women’s Featherweight Championship.
“I was nine months pregnant I saw a video of Gina Carano giving an interview and she didn’t look good. She gained like an unhealthy amount of weight,” Rousey said. “My first thought was like, ‘Oh my God, what can I do? What can I do to help?’ And the reason I had that thought was because she’s the one women not only in MMA that doesn’t owe me a damn thing but that I owe immensely and I’m always trying to look out for what I can do for her,” continued Rousey.
“Her family owns Caesars Palace and Webull Oil. Like, there’s nothing I can really do for her except when I was in a similar spot when I was, you know, depressed and gave up on the world and inadvertently gave up on myself. What I needed was a goal and something to reignite my passion again. And I always said Gina was the one person I’d come back to fight for. And I thought, you know what, like she needs this. She needs this fight. And the more that I thought about it, you know what, I need this. I really need this fight.”
Rousey gave birth to her second daughter, Liko’ula Pā’ūomahinakaipiha Browne, in January 2025. She was in discussions with Carano for more than a year before the announcement was made.
“This has been in the making since I was pregnant, which was over a year ago. So, it took a long time to get us here,” Rousey said. “We fought for this and we fought to fight each other, and there were a lot of obstacles along the way. I told her, if I have to go out there and train you myself to fight me, I will. And we made it happen. We had to work together to overcome ever obstacle to get here.”
