Rousey

Former UFC champion and Olympic medalist Ronda Rousey (13-2) needed just 17 seconds to defeat Gina Carano (7-2) with her signature armbar on Saturday at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, bringing her mixed martial arts (MMA) career to a close.

In her return to MMA, Rousey quickly took Carano down to the mat at the start of the round. Carano tried to defend herself but left her arm exposed, allowing the judoka to apply her signature armbar.

Rousey stopped fighting in 2016 following losses to Holly Holm in 2015 and Amanda Nunes a year later. For the Riverside resident, this fight marks the career finale Rousey never had.

“There’s no way I can top this,” said Rousey, 39, when asked after the fight if she planned to return to the ring.

“I wanted it to last longer,” said Carano, 44.

Rousey urged Carano to consider the fight at a difficult time in her life and the actor said she lost 100 pounds to prepare for the bout.

“She gave me a reason; I woke up every day thinking about her,” Carano said of Rousey.

“She’s a hero to me. You changed my world,” Rousey told Carano, before hugging her after the brief bout. “I didn’t want to hurt her — that’s just how mixed martial arts is.”

The event was organized by MVP, co-owned by influencer and boxer Jake Paul and businessman Nakisa Bridarian. The bout was scheduled for five rounds in the featherweight division.

“You’re going to see more MMA on MVP, and it’s all thanks to these women,” Paul said, before telling UFC President Dana White that his company would host more high-profile MMA events like Saturday’s card at Intuit Dome that paid the headliners millions and every fighter lower on the card at least $40,000 apiece.

Ronda Rousey hugs Gina Carano after using an armbar to beat Carano Saturday at Intuit Dome.

(Jae C. Hong / Ap Photo/jae C. Hong)

Carano had not competed since 2009 — a 17-year hiatus — and is considered by many to be the pioneer of women’s MMA, having competed in Strikeforce and Elite XC before retiring following a loss to Cyborg.

In other welterweight bouts, 41-year-old Nate Díaz (22-14) was unable to make it to the third round of his fight against Mike Perry (15-8) after taking a beating in two rounds, during which he also landed some strikes but bore the brunt of the action.

With Díaz’s face bleeding profusely, Perry took advantage of Díaz’s questionable physical condition. Díaz hadn’t fought in MMA since 2022, when he defeated Tony Ferguson, though he had dabbled in boxing.

Mike Beltrán, the referee for the bout, stopped the fight after Díaz was unable to stop the bleeding and continue at the end of the second round.

“I landed some good shots, but I was getting tired,” said Perry, 34. “He’s very good, tough; when he looks like he’s hurt, he always has a trick up his sleeve, so I had to be careful.”

In another heavyweight bout, Cameroonian Francis Ngannou (19-3) needed just one round to dispatch Brazilian Philipe Lins (18-6) in a fight where he didn’t seem to be trying very hard. The African fighter punished Lins, who, although he defended himself and managed to land a few blows on Ngannou, was easy prey for a blow to the head that knocked him out in the opening round.

Ronda Rousey uses an armbar to defeat Gina Carano in 17 seconds on Saturday at Intuit Dome.

(Jae C. Hong / Ap Photo/jae C. Hong)

“I kept my composure,” said Ngannou, 39. “My knockout wasn’t impressive for my style.”

Ngannou also challenged legendary former UFC champion Jon Jones to a bout in MVP MMA. Jones was in the arena conducting an interview with the Netflix broadcast team when he received the challenge and gave a thumbs up amid the crowd’s cheers. Another potential boxing opponent for the Cameroonian is MVP promoter Jake Paul himself, who stepped into the Octagon to celebrate with winners on Saturday.

“As a businessman, we’re going to promote MMA. And hopefully we can fight one day in boxing,” Paul said.

In the lightweight division, Salahdine Parnasse (23-2) defeated Kenneth Cross (17-5) in the first round after landing a flurry of punches and dominating him early. Parnasse unleashed a wide-ranging offensive, from body shots to head strikes, to end the fight at the 4:18 mark of the first round.

In another bout, in the heavyweight division, Brazilian Junior dos Santos (21-11) was knocked out spectacularly by Cuban Robelis Despaigne (6-2) in the first round. The Cuban landed a three-punch combination — two rights and a left — to finish off a bloodied Dos Santos at 2:59.

Despaigne, who has fought for promotions such as Karate Combat, said afterward that he would like to face Ngannou.

Other results

In the main event of the preliminary card, Namo Fazil (10-1) submitted Jake Babian (6-2) in the second round of their welterweight bout.

In a 130-pound catchweight bout, Brazilian Adriano Moraes (22-6) knocked out American Phumi Nkuta (11-1) in the final second of the third round. Moraes landed a kick to Nkuta’s body in the final moments of a close bout, and as Nkuta fell, Moraes applied a guillotine choke. At first, it appeared the bell had saved Nkuta, but the referee determined that the fighter was already knocked out and awarded the victory to Moraes.

In the welterweight division, one of the best knockouts of the night occurred when Jason Jackson (20-6) sent Jefferson Creighton (12-3-1) to the canvas in just 22 seconds.

In the featherweight division, David Mgoyan (9-1) dominated Albert Morales (19-11), defeating him by unanimous decision (29-28, 30-26, and 30-27).

Aline Pereira (3-2) defeated Jade Masson-Wong (3-3) by split decision (29-28, 29-28, 27-30) in a 130-pound bout.

Chris Avila (8-10) was defeated by split decision (29-28, 29-28, 28-29) by Brandon Jenkins (17-11) in a 165-pound bout.

This article first appeared in Spanish via L.A. Times en Español.

Rousey won the fight with her signature armbar lock, forcing Carano into submission just 17 seconds into the bout.

Mixed martial arts (MMA) star Ronda Rousey has re-retired after demolishing fellow combat sports trailblazer Gina Carano in their long-awaited non-title comeback bout in Los Angeles, defeating her rival by armbar after just 17 seconds.

After a hype-filled build-up, the bout on Saturday was a jarring anti-climax, with Rousey flooring Carano almost immediately before wrestling her into an armbar to end the fight.

American stars Rousey, 39, and Carano, 44, are widely regarded as two of the most important female fighters in the history of MMA, helping to take the sport into the mainstream during their fighting heydays more than a decade ago.

Carano had parlayed her success into a Hollywood career, appearing in several action movie roles, but had not fought since 2009 before her appearance in Saturday’s featherweight bout.

Rousey, a 2008 Olympics judo bronze medallist who subsequently found huge success in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), retired from the sport in 2016 after suffering back-to-back defeats against Amanda Nunes and Holly Holm.

The fighters were lured back into the cage for Saturday’s card at the Intuit Dome with the promise of a bumper payday that will reportedly see each fighter earn several million dollars from the streaming giant.

Rousey (13-2-0 MMA) secured her 10th submission win, returning to the cage following an exit from MMA in December 2016.

She insisted afterwards her return to the ring was a one-off and ruled out the possibility of fighting again after paying tribute to Carano.

“Gina is the only person who could have brought me back into MMA – she’s my hero,” Rousey said. “She changed my world, and we changed the world, and I’ll never ever forget that or be able to pay that back enough.

“I’m so glad we finally got to share this moment.”

Asked about possibly extending her comeback, Rousey added: “There’s no way I could have ended it better than this. I want to have some more babies, got to get cooking.”

Carano (7-2-0 MMA) ⁠⁠had been inactive in the sport since August 2009, returning to MMA after a conversation last year at Rousey’s encouragement. She admitted the fight was too fast for her, regretting what ⁠⁠more she could have done in a short timeframe.

“I feel great,” Carano said after the loss. “I wanted to fight, ⁠⁠and I didn’t get that. But she trained. She ⁠⁠had her game plan. I have so much love and respect for her, and this was a victory in my life. She changed it. I woke up at 3am every morning thinking about ‌‌her. I fell back in love with mixed martial arts. There’s ‌‌so ‌‌many things to think about here. It’s just [that] the fight didn’t go my way.

“I wanted that to last longer – I felt like I was so ready, I felt so good,” she said. “But I haven’t been here for 17 years. I wanted to hit her.”

Carano, 44, is unsure whether she’ll return to MMA, choosing to keep the door open.

Carano said the mere fact of getting in shape for her return – she revealed before the bout she had shed more than 100 pounds (45kg) in the two years leading up to the contest – was a victory.

“Right now, just getting in the cage was a victory, getting here after 17 years is a victory. Fighting a legend was a victory. I feel great, I just wanted to fight, and I didn’t get to do that.”

Ronda Rousey returns to the ring on Saturday to face Gina Carano at the Intuit Dome in a card that its promoters hope will prove that mixed martial arts (MMA) can generate the same excitement as boxing without the UFC.

The five-round, 145-pound bout airing on Netflix (6 p.m. PDT) will be the first MMA event promoted by Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), the company co-founded by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bridarian. According to Bridarian, the card is the most expensive in MVP history, with each fighter receiving at least $40,000 — a sum greater than what UFC rookies receive.

“I would say this is the most expensive MMA card ever put together,” Bridarian said Wednesday. “We can only do this because we have a partner [Netflix] that allows us to pull it off, and they deserve it.”

Rousey (12-2), a Riverside native, is returning to competition after a nine-year hiatus, during which she starred in movies, wrestled in the WWE and became a mother of two. Her informal retirement came after consecutive losses to Holly Holm in 2015 and Amanda Nunes in 2016. For the Californian, this fight is the career finale she never had.

Gina Carano participates in an open workout Wednesday at Venice Beach ahead of her Netflix MMA bout with Ronda Rousey at Intuit Dome.

(Sarah Stier / Getty Images for Netflix)

“It’s incredible, because I feel like, no matter what happens, I’m completely at peace with it,” Rousey said. “Before, winning was the most important thing in the world. Now, what matters most to me are my kids and my family.”

Rousey hopes the event will draw more than nine million viewers, a threshold that would help convince Netflix and MVP to invest in MMA on a sustained basis. The MMA ratings record belongs to the fight between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez at UFC on Fox 1 on Nov. 12, 2011, which peaked at 8.8 million viewers and averaged 5.7 million during its broadcast.

Netflix has already demonstrated an appetite for combat sports, posting impressive numbers: it drew a global audience of 33 million for Paul versus Anthony Joshua, 41.4 million for the Canelo Álvarez-Terence Crawford bout and 108 million for the Paul-Mike Tyson fight. However, promoters are aware that MMA operates in a different league and that on Saturday they will have the top ambassador of women’s MMA in action.

Ronda Rousey lunges forward and punches during an open workout at Venice Beach on Wednesday ahead of Netflix MMA bout against Gina Carano at Intuit Dome.

(Sarah Stier / Getty Images for Netflix)

“I just want to convince MVP and Netflix that there’s something here worth investing in and that they should keep backing MMA,” Rousey said.

Carano (7-1), 44, also has a historic track record, having been part of the first women’s MMA fight on live television in 2007 and headlining the first Showtime card featuring two women as main event fighters, facing Cris Cyborg in 2009. Although Carano is unlikely to pose a competitive challenge for Rousey, both women are approaching the event more as pioneers than as rivals.

On Wednesday, Rousey trained at Venice Beach in front of dozens of fans, the same beach where she began her career. She was accompanied by Pauline Macías, a Brazilian judoka, MMA fighter and close friend since the age of 11.

“It’s the ending she deserves,” Rousey said of her special training session ahead of what could potentially be her final fight as a fighter.

Beyond her fight, Rousey has her sights set on becoming a promoter to improve conditions for fighters outside the UFC.

“It’s about giving the power back to the fighters and reminding people that we are the essence of this sport, not a brand or a belt,” said the 39-year-old fighter.

The match has been criticized for taking place more than 10 years late, well past the fighters’ prime. Carano disagreed.

“I think this fight is coming at just the right time,” Carano said. “Two years ago, you would have seen a different version of me. Right now, I’m in such a strong place that, well, I’ve had to go through all of this to get here.”

This article first appeared in Spanish via L.A. Times en Español.