In a surprising twist of events, a recent announcement was made regarding the rumors of the Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano fight. The rumors were swirling particularly around the beginning of March when Joe Rogan made a comment about Ronda Rousey’s next opponent.
From the way the announcement sounded, it hinted that her opponent would be a high profile woman. The top three names thrown around in the rumor merry go round were Gina Carano, Holly Holm, and Invicta Featerweight Champion Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino. While all three were initially dismissed by Dana White, there appears to be a 360 in that he recently announced Carano will indeed face Rousey at UFC 175.
The news was broken on the MMA Underground website also known as mixedmartialarts.com. Writer for the site Chris Palmquist broke the news reporting it following a special edition of UFC Tonight in which Dana White appeared. White announced that the Rousey versus Carano fight will be the co headliner for the fight card as the already announced Chris Weidman versus Lyoto Machida fight for the middleweight title will still be the main event. Should this prove to be true this could potentially be one of the highest profile fights in women’s MMA. However, one should ask a few questions about the details.
One of the sources listed as having been interviewed by the Underground was Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer. Kizer resigned his role as the Executive Director and the position is supposedly vacant. It was also mentioned that supposedly the match will take place with special “bikini and jello” rules. Then it was mentioned that the fight would be a title but Carano has had trouble making weight at featherweight, let alone make bantamweight. All of these lend credence to the idea that this news can only be one thing: It’s an April Fools joke.
This actually wouldn’t be the first time this took place in the MMA community. Last year when it was reported Alexander Gustafsson was injured from his fight, Wanderlei Silva announced that he was going to be Gustafsson’s replacement to fight Gegard Mousasi. The next day it was exposed (by Silva himself) as an April Fools joke. This also casts the recently announced Dan Henderson versus Daniel Cormier bout supposedly taking place on the same card in doubt. More then likely we will find out on April 2nd whether either fight is in fact taking place.