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Gina Carano comments on upcoming fight against Cyborg
By Zach Arnold | July 18, 2009
I have a lot of multimedia to catch up on watching and listening to this weekend, but one clip I ran across was at AOL Fanhouse where they had a quick interview with Gina Carano when she was in New York earlier in the week to hype up her upcoming August 15th fight against Cyborg. (Direct video link here.)
The interview clip itself was short. Gina comes across as a combination of nervous, bashful, and almost uncomfortable when it comes to doing interviews. Which is why this transcript is somewhat short. Nevertheless, here it is.
TRANSCRIPT
Interviewer: “Welcome to New York. The last time we saw you here was in May of 2008 for the Elite XC’s first event on CBS. It seems a little bit different now, doesn’t it?”
Gina Carano: “Gee, are you seeing this? This is amazing. This is crazy. I really appreciate all the media covering this because this is, this is huge for the sport and for women and for me.”
Interviewer: “Did you ever think that when you first got into this sport that you’d be headlining an event on a network like Showtime? I mean, obviously, there have been you know headlining acts for female fighters, but never on such a grand stage like this.”
Gina Carano: “I never thought about it until I started seeing the reaction that people were giving and now this is like this is a dream come true, so I just I’m just looking forward to the fight and having it done and doing well.”
Interviewer: “It took a long time for the Strikeforce deal to come through but it finally went through, now you’re fighting for them against Cyborg the one that you always wanted to face. Did you get nervous there for a while that this fight would never actually happen?”
Gina Carano: “I knew it would happen, you know you can always fight anywhere you can fight in your backyard. *laugh* I knew it would happen but you know maybe the anticipation for it ended up being a good thing. But it’s going to happen and I’m stoked on it, I’m happy and that’s…”
Interviewer: “And you’ve enlisted the help of Randy Couture to be your head trainer. Randy’s obviously a legend in this sport and in the past Kim Couture has been in your corner. She also going to be in your corner?”
Gina Carano: “Um, no. No she’s not going to be in my corner for this fight. I, Randy’s being a mentor to me and then I’ve got, I never trained with Kim so she was just more there for my moral support but now I’m having Randy kind of take that over. I always wanted him to be that and I think that I need that for Cyborg.”
Interviewer: “In the press conference, you mentioned Kit Cope.”
*audible groan*
Gina Carano: “No, that wasn’t Kit Cope, it was actually Kevin Ross.”
Interviewer: “Well I just want to ask you a question, there’s something that came out today that Kit was talking about that if you keep training with Xtreme Couture that you might be in trouble come August 15th, that you’re not getting the training you deserve at Xtreme Couture. How would you respond to that?”
Gina Carano: “Who said that?”
Interviewer: “Kit Cope.”
Gina Carano: “Oh… That’s not true. Actually I am getting everything that I need right now and everything’s going very well, but thanks for the concern Kit. Everything is good, everything is good.”
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 9 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
The Interviewer? You mean, Ariel Helwani?
I used to really enjoy his interviews but his infantile People magazine shtick is really turning me off.
Is her ex-boyfriend/ex-trainer insulting her current world champion training camp really relevant?
I’m getting a little annoyed with the gossip-rag type crap that’s following Gina around. If people want to seriously critique whether she’s training up to potential, there’s a better question that just “do you want to respond to comments by Kit Cope?”
I mean, there’s a legitimate question about whether she’s taking this fight (and her MMA career in general) as seriously as she should, but that’s a much more involved question than “this guy you used to go out with said you’re not getting what you need as Xtreme Couture.”
The gossip stuff that is following Gina around is partially her fault. She has made comments about liking to roll around with girls. She conducts her interviews like Paris Hilton, where there is an obvious lack of brains behind the words.
She can train with me… I’ll give her what she needs.
Zach:
An interesting topic for you to explore would be the double standard in reporting on Ms. Carano and Brock Lesnar.
So many people like to fawn over Gina, Loretta Hunt event said her upcoming fight is more important than UFC 100. It’s funny to me that people say Gina is a great ambassador for the sport and take her seriously when she hasn’t made weight in what her last 3 fights? Brock has made weight in all of his fights, and he cuts a considerable amount.
Gina has gotten handpicked opponents that are often 2 weight classes below the weight class she’s supposed to be fighting at. I remember people attack Wanderlei Silva about that (and rightfully so to some degree) when he was hammering on smaller Japanese fighters.
Brock has fought Frank Mir twice, Heath Herring and Randy Couture. That’s incredible for a guy with 5 fights. His first fight was a gimme but honestly everyone’s is usually.
Brock has shown incredible improvement and growth in MMA. He has great technique. He put on a clinic in how to neutralize the half guard against Mir. Mir has some of the best, most aggressive jiu jitsu in MMA. The feint he used against Randy was beautiful. But all people talk about is he only wins because he’s big. Then they talk about his antics as opposed to he is a force. With Gina they ignore that her game is full of holes and focus on her being an ambassador. It’s ridiculous to me.
I think it is because female MMA has such few high level fighters in it right now, especially in the US.
Thanks for transcribing these interviews. They are fun to read and are informative.
Roadblock, very good points; I do think Gina has got some definite skills and I respect anyone who goes into the ring.
Lesnar has indeed shown growth, and he’s a quick study; he works to improve, and I think he’ll have a great career. His wrestling base is an excellent beginning, and his getting down to 270 or so makes him a much more dangerous fighter.
I do think some in the MMA world fawn over him too much, and I would like to see more anayltical examinations of him and other fighters.
Gina’s weight-making problem I would worry about, if I were her trainer or manager; recent pics of her don’t look good, and I have to wonder about her conditioning as she preps for Cyborg.
But yeah; Gina is being made the female face of MMA, and that’s fine. She can fight, and being a good looker does not hurt her case. I want to see more critical looks at her training and conditioning.
The fight with Cyborg will prove whether Carano is a legit fighter, or just a “pretty face” the media is using to push product.