Gina Carano says UFC offered her $1 million to fight Ronda Rousey, and explained how an accidental insulting text from Dana White derailed things.
The idea of a superfight between [autotag]Ronda Rousey[/autotag] and [autotag]Gina Carano[/autotag] was at some point a plan, at least according to Carano.
The first breakthrough star of women’s MMA and Hollywood star revealed to ESPN on Monday that the UFC had offered her $1 million to fight then-undefeated UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. The fight between the two easily could’ve been one of the biggest fights in MMA history with Rousey (12-2, 6-2 UFC) and Carano (7-1) being household names in the sport each in their respective eras.
“When Ronda Rousey became popular, I remember they (Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta – former UFC owners) had finally called for a meeting and I walked in this restaurant and they looked like these two big muscly guys at the table in like the middle of Hollywood,” Carano said. “I remember thinking, ‘What took you guys so long, I’ve been, what took you so long.’ So they were like, ‘Okay 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 continued. “You have to find a team or build one that’s going to be into what you’re doing and if you haven’t actively been a part of anything, you can walk in as Gina Carano or whoever but you’re still going to have to find the people who are really going to be there for you and that takes 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 and when 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.”
Despite thinking the stars had aligned for a potential long-awaited return to the cage, things took an unexpected turn when UFC president Dana White discussed the comeback plans with the media.
“Then like the next day, Dana was out there talking about me, talking about my name, and telling people that he was going to sign me – and I don’t even have a team yet,” Carano explained. “I was like, ‘that’s not what we discussed; you were supposed to give me at least six months to kind of find a team.’ Then he started trying to put on the pressure through the media, and it was a bummer because I told him over text message that’s not what we talked about, I need time, now I’m going to walk into a gym and people are going to know that’s what I’m doing. I need to build trust if I’m going to find people.
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“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. Because I don’t think that was the kind of environment that I wanted to come back into, I cut all communication after that text. Then I remember seeing him when Mike Tyson and my dad were getting honored at a sports hall of fame in Las Vegas, and he did come over and genuinely apologized.
“But yeah, I just don’t think even a $1 million, you shouldn’t, when people hold money over your head, which they have done since I was a little girl, its just never been a turn-on for me. I don’t have a problem with authority; I just have a problem with abused authority and that’s my thing, so that was the end of that conversation.”
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The actor whose roles have included “Haywire,” “Fast and Furious 6,” and most recently Star Wars’ “Mandalorian” also revealed she could’ve gone elsewhere, citing both that she was a free agent and her good relationship with former Strikeforce and current Bellator president Scott Coker.
However, Carano’s passion for acting was much stronger than her passion for fighting.
“I had a fight and I had a movie (Deadpool), and I chose the movie,” Carano said. “That seems to be the way how things have gone.”
“I think about it (return to fighting) every single time I hit the heavy bag, I think about it,” Carano said. “But if you were to ask me if I had the decision today, I would chose a movie because that’s where my heart is and that’s where I want to be and I hope that maybe someday. I mean, if I really wanted to fight, I can pick up a fight in England or Thailand in muay Thai and get it out of my system. But for right now, I’m working on a script, I’m working on this other giant that’s become my fight now.”
Carano last fought in Aug. 2009, where she lost to Cris Cyborg for the inaugural Strikeforce women’s featherweight title in what was the first major MMA event headlined by a women’s bout. The TKO loss remains Carano’s only professional defeat.
