It lasted 17 seconds. Seventeen. After all the hype, all the press, all the years of anticipation for a fight between two women who between them basically invented mainstream women’s MMA — Ronda Rousey submitted Gina Carano in the first round, then immediately announced her second retirement from the sport. That’s how Saturday night at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, went.
The main event of MVP MMA 1 — the first MMA event ever broadcast live on Netflix — saw Rousey, 39, return to competition for the first time since her devastating back-to-back knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes in 2016-17, which had ended her original career.
Carano, 44, had not fought since her TKO loss to Cris Cyborg in 2009 — a 17-year gap between fights that made this matchup extraordinarily unusual by any professional sports standard. She had shed 100 pounds over 20 months to prepare for the fight, which she described before the event as one of the defining personal achievements of her life regardless of outcome.
What followed was vintage, unambiguous Rousey. She came out of the corner, absorbed a Carano leg kick, immediately secured a takedown, advanced to mount, threw a flurry of ground-and-pound, then locked in the armbar. Carano tapped at the 17-second mark of Round 1. It was Rousey’s 10th career submission win.
After the fight, Rousey told Ariel Helwani she had no interest in fighting again. “There’s no way I could have ended it better than this,” she said. “I want to have some more babies and I’ve got to get cooking.” She also said: “Gina is the only person who could have brought me back into MMA — she’s my hero.”
Carano was gracious in defeat, saying: “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.” She left the door open on whether she might fight again.
The rest of the MVP MMA 1 card was no slouch either: Mike Perry defeated Nate Diaz by TKO at the end of Round 2 in a bloody, chaotic slugfest, and Francis Ngannou knocked out Philipe Lins in Round 1. But in the middle of all of it, Dana White announced Conor McGregor vs. Max Holloway 2 — a move Jake Paul called “a power move” while also accusing White of deliberately trying to step on MVP’s debut night.
