Ahead of a meeting with Gina Carano last night, Dana White told a media gathering in L.A that if she did return then they’d look to put her into an immediate title shot against current UFC woman’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey.
“I’d do Ronda and Gina,” White stated, which brought a lot of laughter before the rapidly blushing UFC president quickly added, “I’d do that fight!”
Rousey, who was sitting next to him at the time, held her head in her hands in embarassment after White’s double-entendre, but gave her full backing to the idea of a potential superfight with the former fighter turned movie actress.
“I think it would be the best thing for women’s MMA,” Rousey said. “I think it would be the highest profile fight that could be done.
“I don’t think it would make sense for her to come back and fight somebody else and take the risk of maybe losing and not being able to capitalize on the fight between me and her. I think it would make more sense to go straight to a title fight.”
White also indicated that Carano was also likely to be on-board with the idea of an immediate shot at Rousey’s title.
“She’s the type of person like this one here (pointing at Rousey), she’s not coming back just because. She’s coming back because she wants the title.”
Neither White nor Rousey chose to dwell on the fact that Carano hasn’t fought in five years and her last outing resulted in a first TKO round loss to Cris ‘Cyborg’ in the Strikeforce promotion.
So, there we have it. Assuming last night’s meeting with Carano went well – and the very fact that White and Rousey were speaking so openly about it before it even took place suggests they were confident that it would – then the biggest fight in female mixed martial arts history (though not necessarily the most competitive) looks set to become a reality.
