Ronda Rousey On What Inspired Her To Reach Out To Gina Carano For Fight

Ronda Rousey will face Gina Carano for an MMA fight on Netflix, and Rousey recently revealed what inspired her to propose the bout. Rousey and Carano will fight in a livestreamed show on Netflix on May 16th. It is the return to MMA for both Rousey and Carano, who circled a potential fight for years but never got it set until now.

Rousey spoke with The Jim Rome Show and noted that she was inspired to reach out to Carano for the fight a year ago when she saw an interview with Carano. Rousey alluded to how Carano’s career “imploded’ after she was fired from The Mandalorian for controversial social media posts.

Rousey noted Carano was “obviously not doing well” and wanted to do the fight to help pull her out of the “rut” she was in. You can see the highlights below:

On What Inspired Her To Reach Out To Carano:

“Well actually, I was nine months pregnant when when I came up with the the idea. I saw an interview of Gina and her career had imploded after making some posts. And she was doing an interview, and was obviously not doing well and had gained a lot of weight. And I’ve been in a similar situation where I needed something to to pull me out of my own rut. And I owe her so much. My whole lifestyle, my whole career, everything. She’s the one that put it in my mind that I could I could be a fighter in MMA. And so I’ve always been kind of on the lookout for for what I could do for her cuz I owe her so much.

“And I thought like, ‘Man.’ She comes from wealth, there’s nothing I can do for her. But I saw her in that spot and I was like, ‘Oh girl, I’ve sung that song. I’ve danced that dance.’ And what I needed to get out of that rut was something to reignite my passion again. And that’s what WWE was was able to do for me.”

On Deciding She Wanted the Fight:

“I always said I’d only come back to fight her. So I saw her in that spot and I’m like, ‘You know what? She needs this. She needs this fight.’ And the more that I thought about it, I was like, ‘Damn, I really need this fight. It it’s the only thing that kind of could ignite that fire in me again.’

“Once I had that thought, I was like, ‘Oh man, that would be so great.’ And I missed that feeling, and so I found a way to to reach out to her. And it’s been a long road to get here that I won’t be able to cover in the few minutes that we have today. But yeah, we’ve been training for a whole year in secret, and finally we’re we’re able to let it out.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the Jim Rome with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.