UFC News: Gina Carano opens up about the Ronda Rousey fight that never happened

A fight between MMA superstars Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano was definitely on the cards, according to the latter. However, it never materialized due to an unfortunate turn of events, and both the fighters went their separate ways.

Gina Carano reveals the reasons behind the cancellation of the fight negotiations on her debut appearance on Ariel Helwani's MMA Show.

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Carano asked for six months

The first breakthrough star of women's MMA and Hollywood celebrity, Carano was approached by Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta when Ronda Rousey was at the top of her game. She was offered a million dollars to fight the yet-to-be-defeated UFC Bantamweight Champion.

The contest had the firepower to become one of the biggest fights in the history of MMA, given how both the fighters were trailblazers in the industry during their respective tenures. But since Carano was already well into acting by then, she asked for time to get back in shape and find a team to be in her corner.

“When Ronda Rousey became popular, I remember they (Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta) had finally called for a meeting... So they were like, ‘OK, we’d love to offer you a million dollars. We’d love to have that fight.’ And I was like, ‘Well, that sounds great, but I’m going to need you to do me a favor, then, because I’ve been acting, I’m not active in any gym. So it’s going to take me, you know, you re going to have to give me some time to build a team or join a team.’... And it's not an easy thing, as I'm sure all the fighters know."

Carano negotiated with White to give her six months and requested him to not make anything about the fight public during that time.

"So I told them, ‘You got to be able to just sit on this for about six months, Dana. You can’t say anything and let me get situated with that, because that sounds great and I’d love to do it.’ So it was a nice dinner, and we all left positive. I left stoked, and I was like, ‘OK, well this makes sense. This is my moment to come and be back in there.”

But Dana White had different plans.

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White's actions made Carano change her mind

Carano was clearly taken by surprise when White started talking about her return with the media from the very next day. Despite her texting him time and again about needing time to build a team, Carano explained, White would not back off and continued with making public statements about the possible fight.

“So then he kept on doing that, and I was still kind of searching for a team and feeling all that pressure, and then he sent me a text message saying, ‘This (expletive) is something, like (expletive) us around,’ something like that. And I sent a text message back and I sent, ‘I think you sent this out to the wrong person,’ and he said, ‘I don’t think I did.’ That was the last conversation that we had over text message."

Carano said that she stopped all communication with White and UFC after this conversation went down because it was not the kind of welcome she entertained for herself.

"I don't have problem with authority. I just have a problem with abused authority."

Even the $1 million did not matter as she turned down the proposal because according to her, people have been holding money over her head all her life and it does not work as a motivator for her. White had later apologized to her in a Hall of Fame ceremony where her father Glenn Carano and Mike Tyson was being honored.

Carano's last fight was against Cris Cyborg in August 2009 for the first Strikeforce women's Featherweight title. Her TKO loss in that bout, which was also the first major MMA event to be headlined by women fighters, is the sole loss of her fighting career.

Carano went on to star in movies with A-listed casts and smashing box office figures, like Deadpool, Fast and Furious 6 and Haywire. Her most recent appearance was in The Mandalorian on Disney+.

H/t to MMA Junkie for the quotes.