Gina Carano admitted feeling a wave of bittersweet emotions after she was defeated by Ronda Rousey in just 17 seconds in their highly anticipated MMA dream fight.
“This was one of the best rides of my life,” Carano, 44, shared via X on Monday, May 18. “I felt locked in fight night. No fear just focused positive adrenaline. Love to my team. 🥹.”
Rousey, 39, defeated Carano in swift fashion on Saturday, May 16, locking Carano in her signature armbar shortly after the start of the fight at Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome.
“My heart is heavy, I wanted to throw, battle, win, but I kicked when I should have moved and was down and done,” Carano continued. “If I hadn’t tapped she would’ve broken my arm, as it had begun to crackle. The disappointment of losing like that is very humbling.”
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Carano credited MMA legends Jon Jones and Cain Velasquez with giving her words of encouragement after the fight, saying they both “set my mind straight.”
“I’ve been in a caloric deficit for a year, training felt like swimming as hard as I could upstream,” Carano said about her fight prep. “I can count on two hands the number of times I felt good training. It was physically the hardest thing I’ve ever done taking the weight off while turning back into an athlete. I felt like a science experiment losing 100lbs. Every week the pressure of how to get that little bit off. I learned a little late how to do it healthier but trial by fire.”
Carano shouted out the California Athletic Commission for being “the strictest in the world” as they monitored her health before fighting Rousey.
“They weighed me a week and a half before the fight, extra tests and scans, multiple drug tests,” she explained. “We weighed in and they weighed us the night of the fight to make sure we complied with the rehydration rules, which I passed all easily.”
Despite the quick loss, Carano said she “needed to go through this fight to implement permanent lifestyle changes and now I feel like this is just the beginning.”
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“I can’t wait to see where I can push my body to go next,” she wrote. “I’m so glad the world got to experience this version of @rondarousey. I found a beautiful woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister and legend. I adore you lady. We made history, again.”
Carano added, “Thank you ALL for showing your support. It’s because of you we get to face our fears and live our dreams. With all my heart, thank you all. ❤️.”
After the fight, Rousey said she was “hoping to come out as unscathed as possible.”
“I didn’t really want to hurt her,” she told reporters. “It was beautiful martial arts, that’s what I think that was. It was art.”
