Maybe talk of Gina Carano returning to the UFC wasn’t so far-fetched after all. In a new interview with FOXSports.com, the MMA superstar turning Hollywood actress says she’s not ruling out a return to the sport that made her famous.
“I don’t mind it at all,” Carano says of talk that she could fight in the UFC. “I’ve never retired. I’ve never officially said that. For some reason a part of me has always kept it open. I don’t know, there’s a certain part of me that thinks if circumstances were right, and I could keep doing what I’m trying to make my future into, that’s an ideal world. If circumstances were right, you never know. I’m very open to it.”
Carano, who says she’s more of an MMA fan now than ever, hints that she’s even had conversations (though she doesn’t say who with) about returning, but she keeps going back to the idea that “circumstances have to be right.”
The main issue is that since moving on from MMA in 2009 she’s managed to get a foot in the door in Hollywood with a starring role in ‘Haywire’ back in 2011 leading to other roles in ‘Fast & Furious 6’ and the new straight-to-DVD thriller, ‘In The Blood’.
She says that if she was to return to MMA she’d “take something like that very seriously,” and would “dedicate myself to it.”
Given that she’s not actively been training for a fight that could mean a six-month fight camp and in order to do that the financial side of things would have to be right to be able to support herself during that period, and it would have to fit in with her acting schedule.
At the moment the only movie Carano is officially earmarked to star in is an as-yet untitled movie set for release in 2015 which is rumored to be a female take on ‘The Expendables’ series with Katie Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica / Riddick) also attached.
It remains to be seen if something can be arranged, but you’d have to think that the UFC would bend over backwards to get Carano in the Octagon as she’s a guaranteed money-spinner.
Interestingly, current bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey indicated recently that she’d even be willing to move up to 145lbs to fight her, so it seems that there is the potential for all the stars to align here.
For now it’s all just talk though, so in the mean time, why not check out Carano kicking ass in the trailer below for her new movie which hits stores on April 4th.
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