Rousey Returns to MMA
Ronda Rousey officially announced her return to mixed martial arts after nearly a decade away. She will face Gina Carano in a featherweight bout on May 16 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, promoted by Jake Paul's Most Valuable Promotions and streaming exclusively on Netflix. Rousey emphasized the significance, stating "This is for all MMA fans past, present and future."
- Rousey's last MMA appearance was in 2016, a TKO loss to Amanda Nunes. This followed her first career loss to Holly Holm in 2015, ending her three-year reign as the UFC's inaugural women's bantamweight champion, during which she successfully defended her title six times. - After her MMA career, Rousey signed with WWE in 2018, where she became the Raw Women's Champion. She is the only woman to have held championships in both the UFC and WWE. - Gina Carano is considered a pioneer of women's MMA and was often called the "face of women's MMA." Her last fight was in 2009, a defeat to Cris Cyborg for the inaugural Strikeforce Women's Featherweight Championship, which was the first and only loss of her 7-1 professional career. - Since retiring from MMA, Carano has pursued an acting career, appearing in films like "Haywire," "Fast & Furious 6," and "Deadpool," as well as the "Star Wars" series "The Mandalorian." - Carano was controversially fired from "The Mandalorian" in 2021 over social media posts that Lucasfilm called "abhorrent and unacceptable." She later sued Disney and Lucasfilm for wrongful termination, a lawsuit bankrolled by Elon Musk that was settled in August 2024. - The fight marks the first-ever MMA event for both promoter Most Valuable Promotions and streamer Netflix. MVP, founded by Jake Paul, previously promoted the high-profile boxing match between Paul and Mike Tyson, which was also streamed by Netflix and attracted 108 million live viewers.
