While former WWE star Ronda Rousey appears to be done together with her pro wrestling profession, she gave the impression to be much more done with MMA, having not fought since her loss to Amanda Nunes ten years ago. But last September, Rousey opened the door to returning to the game, citing the cash earned by Mike Tyson in his fight against Jake Paul as potential motivation.
Five months later, that motivation has become a full fledged comeback. In a Tuesday morning press release, Netflix and Paul’s Most Precious Promotions announced that Rousey can be headlining the streaming service’s first ever MMA event on May 16, held in Los Angeles, California’s Inuit Dome. Rousey will tackle controversial former Strikeforce fighter turned actress Gina Carano.
“After the record-breaking success in boxing, we wanted our first MMA event to be truly legendary,” Gabe Spitzer, Netflix Vice President of Sports Gabe Spitzer said in a press release. “These are greater than just athletes — they’re generational stars, and having them headline our MMA debut on the Intuit Dome is a defining moment for us.”
Like Rousey, this might be Carano’s first fight in a few years, having last stepped right into a ring in 2009, when she lost to Cris Cyborg. A fight between Carano and Rousey, considered the 2 pioneers of ladies’s MMA fighting, had long been sought by UFC, but never took place as Carano seemingly moved on from MMA to deal with her acting profession.
Over the previous couple of years, nonetheless, Carano saw acting roles dry up after she was fired from the Disney+ series “The Mandalorian” on account of several social media posts, which included Carano mocking face masks used in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and making accusations of voter fraud in the course of the 2020 Presidential Election. Carano filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Disney and LucasFilm in 2024, which was settled in August 2025.