It’s not something that many people would have predicted in 2026, but fans are finally going to see a fight between women’s MMA pioneers Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano. Both women will be returning to the sport after lengthy periods of retirement in order to fight each other live on Netflix on May 16th, 2026. The fight is well over a decade in the making, as rumours of it first surfaced around the early 2010s when Rousey was still an active fighter and Carano had retired fairly recently. It would have been one of the biggest fights in the sport at the time and the UFC even attempted to book it in 2014.
Carano has been open about why this fight didn’t come to fruition back then, attributing it to how Dana White handled her request for time to build a team and return to training properly. Carano was already retired for 5 years even at that point in time so it makes sense that she would have needed a longer training camp than Rousey, who was in the middle of her reign as bantamweight world champion. Carano’s career actually predates Rousey’s completely, as she had her final fight around a year before Rousey even made her debut as an amateur on the regional MMA circuit.
Carano’s career was fairly short-lived, but she shared the cage with many of the best fighters of her era over the course of it. She started out as a Muay Thai fighter before that and after amassing a 12-1-1 record there, she transitioned to MMA in 2006 and went 7-1 before retiring in 2009. Rousey had just come off winning a bronze medal in the Olympics for Judo and was preparing for her MMA debut at the time, but she quickly became one of the biggest names in the sport. She rattled off a perfect 6-0 start to her career before being crowned the very first female UFC world champion in 2012.
Rousey had a solid title-reign at bantamweight and became known for her lightning-quick finishes of almost every opponent she faced. Although she was eventually dethroned, Rousey retired with a 12-2 record and remains one of the most famous fighters to ever set foot in the cage. Carano also retired off the back of a loss after a series of impressive wins, as she left with a 7-1 record in the end. Although they are both legends of the sport, fans had long given up on the prospect of seeing them fight one another. Now that is all about to change, as Jake Paul’s promotion MVP has managed to make it happen.
Netflix Sports announced the news that Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano would be returning to fight each other in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
