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« | Home | »

Where is Gina Carano?

By Zach Arnold | August 11, 2009

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Good question, considering that outside of the New York event she did with Cyborg to promote the fight for Showtime she has been very quiet (outside of doing an interview with Raw Vegas — transcript here). Sure, there was a ‘media day‘ being touted, but that’s it. That’s all the PR we’ve seen from either fighter in this encounter.

Part of being an ace fighter is doing all of the responsibilities that come with being a champion. Miguel Torres talked about this after his loss to Brian Bowles on Sunday. He also talked about this after the fight with Takeya Mizugaki last April. When you’re the best at what you do, you have a responsibility to do all the media rounds, to be available at any time, to do any advertising that is needed, and to be prepared to do activities outside of the cage. In the case of Miguel Torres, he lived up to everything that a champion is asked to do.

Gina Carano is in a unique situation here. If she beats Cris Cyborg on Saturday night, she becomes the women’s champion for the second biggest MMA promotion in the States. She’s already be the face of women’s MMA and once you are the champion, if you want to be taken seriously you have to be ready and prepared for all the responsibilities that come with being the champion. Unlike Torres and Lesnar and other aces in UFC/WEC, there will (most likely) always be a UFC whether or not those men fight in or out of the organization. With Carano, what is women’s MMA right now? Not much.

The whole lead-up to Cyborg/Gina has been lukewarm, at best. Inexcusable on all fronts and all parties should be blamed for it – Strikeforce, Showtime, Carano, and Cyborg’s camp. Once we have a champion crowned on Saturday, we’re going to find out if the champion understands what their responsibilities are or if they are going to continue to act as if women’s MMA is a secondary aspect to the whole industry.

As noted in the Raw Vegas interview, Gina continues to be shy and awkward during interviews and she kept saying that many other women could be in her position. Wrong. I’m not buying it and neither is anyone else. It’s one thing to be humble but it’s another thing to be avoiding the responsibilities that come with not only being a champion but also building a new sector in the fight industry from scratch. Nobody said that being a pioneer was easy. In the RV interview, Gina talked about wanting to open doors for women to get into MMA, both on the amateur & professional levels (and in gyms). Is she prepared to do everything it takes to make it happen?

Will women’s MMA go the way of women’s boxing?

Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 36 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

36 Responses to “Where is Gina Carano?”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    She comes across as having the maturity level of a Middle School Girl. She really is a horrible interview. Too much nervous giggling, and a real lack of brains to articulate much.

    To me, this is likely the pinnacle of Women’s MMA. People just want to see this fight, and then after that there is not much else. There are no real challengers to the winner. No division set up to groom talent.

    Perhaps they could put on a rematch, but who knows. I agree that the ball has been dropped on promoting this fight. SF & Sho have to be blamed. They haven’t done much to get publicity for Gina or Cyborg.

    The fight itself has two potential major pitfalls:

    1. Weigh-Ins. If either misses weight again, they quickly become the laughing stock of MMA.

    2. 25 Minutes. Has either gone longer then 9 minutes before? They should have made this fight either 3Rd X 5Min or 5Rd X 3 Min. To go from 9 minutes to 25 minutes gives this fight the potential to be a complete snoozer. Women are okay in short bursts. I think their skill levels and conditioning will be exposed if neither can stop the other one.

  2. Jeremy (not that Jeremy) says:

    I’d have to know what way women’s boxing went before I could answer that question. My impression is that the personalities disappeared, which is probably a good thing because the actual competitors can then get their jobs done, but I don’t really know much if anything about boxing.

  3. Smitty The Cutman says:

    Why does it mean she’s not taking responsibilities seriously? Her job is to fight; train and fight. If she’s toning down media requests in order to train for the biggest fight in her life, so be it. That’s what counts. Do your thing Gina.

  4. James says:

    This fight was always going to be meaningless.

    1. Talent in the future is always going to be a problem. It’s just not an attractive option for young female athletes when there is both; (a) stigma attached to womens athletics, (b) better paying options (tennis especially).

    2. While the talent pool isn’t microscopic, the majority of the fighters are spread too thin over several weight classes making it improbable to have one stable division.

    3. Like it or not, unattractive women will not sell a female division. The only reason it has any traction now is because Gina Carano is very appealing to look at… where as Cristiane Santos is mostly an eye sore (there are a few odds pictures where she looks “okay”). You just can’t sell it. It’s not right, it’s not fair, but it is what it is.

  5. Detective Roadblock says:

    Come to think of it SF has never done very good at marketing outside San Jose. For all the kudos they get Carano and the biggest show SF ha been involved with (Baroni v Shamrock) were hyped up by Gary Shaw. For all his numerous flaws Shaw knows how to build hype. He made Gina and Kimbo stars.

    Gina isn’t that interesting o a person. She downt have a big time personality. Once you get past her looks (if her looks do anything for you). There isn’t much there. Cyborg will never be a big star.

    To answer the question on womens boxing. There was a big to do over Christy Martin. Then it died sown. Laila Ali got press but fought girls much smaller than her and avoided Anne Wolfe her one seemingly true opponent. Nobody pays much attention at all to womens boxing.

  6. James says:

    Furthermore, and this is because of the aforementioned lack of all around depth to create one division that can be followed with discussion and rankings and what have you. There are just not enough fights featuring women that can be built towards becoming future opponents for the winner of this upcoming title fight between Carano/Cyborg.

    Detective Roadblock: “To answer the question on womens boxing. There was a big to do over Christy Martin. Then it died sown. Laila Ali got press but fought girls much smaller than her and avoided Anne Wolfe her one seemingly true opponent. Nobody pays much attention at all to womens boxing.”

    Spot on, dude.

    The only time I heard about another female boxer, Mia St. John, was because she was a guest on Jim Rome’s ESPN show and the main topic was her shoot with Playboy and how it could gain attention to her sport (it didn’t obviously).

  7. david m says:

    Why would anyone care about women’s mma?

  8. Dave says:

    The build up to this has been disappointing. I think Coker & Co. have just been so focused on FEDOR FEDOR FEDOR that this show has fallen into obscurity.

    Nick Diaz slipped between Coker’s fingers for this show, the main even which was supposed to be the superfight we all want to see is just a fight happening before Strikeforce can debut Fedor. Fedor, the elusive fighter that slipped from UFC’s hands; the guy that could beat Lesnar and Dana White completely bent over backwards for, is now the money fighter for Strikeforce.. At least that is how they and the media are seeing it now.

    It probably hurts as well that Carano isn’t doing a ton of media interviews, and when she does it is, as 45 has been saying, less than impressive.

  9. archerD says:

    Calm down, DavidM.
    No one’s forcing you to watch women.

    I for one like to watch women do ANYTHING
    You prefer to sit with men watching other half-naked men…Its OK

    @Smitty ditto

    How many times can she answer the dumb question:
    Whats it like being the face of womens MMA? and
    You’re so pretty what are you going to do after fighting? Stupid Media

  10. John says:

    The New York Times had a feature on her a week ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/sports/04mma.html?_r=2

  11. Adam Smith says:

    Gina is not long on brains to be sure.

    I think Chris Cyborg is going to maul her but hope it’s competitive.

    More truth Zach.

  12. Zack says:

    “She comes across as having the maturity level of a Middle School Girl. She really is a horrible interview. Too much nervous giggling, and a real lack of brains to articulate much.”

    LOL @ criticizing Ginas personality. Yes, the first thing I think about when it comes to Gina is the pitfalls of her intellect. How is the view from your mom’s basement this evening?

  13. Alan Conceicao says:

    She’s a special attraction and not much more. It puts her in a strange place where the WEC is clearly too small but she isn’t a necessity for the UFC, and so I suppose Strikeforce is the right place for her. We’ll find out if she draws in a couple weeks.

    Also; Hallman/Hughes III in the UFC is being bandied about. Man, I like that fight. I really do. Nothing big that will sell tons of tickets but I’m strangely enthralled by the prospect, especially after the LI Midget gave Hughes such a scare.

  14. 45 Huddle says:

    “LOL @ criticizing Ginas personality. Yes, the first thing I think about when it comes to Gina is the pitfalls of her intellect. How is the view from your mom’s basement this evening?”

    I think personality does go a long way. Diaz, no matter how much skill he has, will always be looked down upon because of his ghetto like talk. Compare that to a GSP who speaks well and is generally a friendly person.

    The Media picks up on this.

    Hughes/Hallman is an interesting fight. I thought Hallman was in Strikeforce. Let’s be honest, Hughes isn’t exactly going to be champion again. Makes sense to try and have him avenge his two losses. As long as this is like the 3rd most important fight on the card, I don’t have a problem with it.

  15. 45 Huddle says:

    And call me a She-Man lover…. But Cyborg hasn’t looked that bad lately. She girled herself up as much as possible….

  16. Jonathan Snowden says:

    Having interviewed Gina for about 30 minutes, I never once thought of her as awkward. She was easy to talk to and thoughtful.

  17. Dave2 says:

    Huddle I have to agree. Cyborg doesn’t look bad (not sexy but not bad) at her best. But day-to-day and in the cage, she looks really masculine. That’s not going to appeal to the audience. She won’t be a star. All the really big name female athletes have sex appeal. Look at Tennis. Look at Danica Patrick (the Formula 1 chick). Some tennis player with a crappy ranking got on Playboy simply because she was a hot tennis player willing to strip naked. Sex sells.

    The bottom line is that female athletes aren’t respected if they don’t have sex appeal. And the attractive of female athletes also influences who I cheer for so I sort of am affected by that mindset. I was cheering for Kaufman over Baszler because Kaufman is a pretty chick who hits hard. And I’ll be cheering for Gina even though it’s very likely that Cyborg will demolish her pretty face.

  18. Mark says:

    If you think back to how Gina got into the fight business in the first place, it’s because she was 180 pounds and her boyfriend’s Muay Thai trainer suggested she come into classes to lose weight. So she probably, even though she’s fawned over by men constantly now, still has a low self esteem since she was overweight for so long. And I’m sure all the jokes about her missing weight don’t help matters any.

  19. 45 Huddle says:

    Nothing wrong with thick chicks. And there is nothing worse then a nasty skinny model who I can count their ribs. But Gina’s genetics will make it very hard on her to be a fighter for a long time. She will have a weight battle until the day she retires.

    Dave2,

    I completely agree. And it’s just not sports. The way we view actresses is the same way. There are a bunch of really ugly guy actors who have jobs because they can act. How often do you see that for women? They typically get their jobs because they are hot first, and are still solid at acting.

    This is really a man’s world. Women are judged differently. Just look at the last presidential election. It is easier to elect a black man then a woman. Both are about the same on the political spectrum in terms of how they govern, and Hillary had more experience. The sexism is worse in certain parts of the country, but the underlining concept is still present throughout.

    When people watch female fighting for the looks (which they always will), it will never become truly popular.

  20. Mark says:

    And the thing is, women do not support their athletes. They support women’s tennis slightly, but most of the viewers are still men who watch for hot Russian teens grunting like they’re having orgasms with every serve. Most of the WNBA players weren’t that attractive so men weren’t interested, but women didn’t support it much either. I definitely don’t think they’re going to want to watch women’s MMA either. Unfortunately it’s always going to be a novelty of men giggling during triangle chokes and complaining they aren’t wearing make-up and the cornrow braids make them look ugly. It’s a shame because there’s some really exciting fights from the women.

  21. david m says:

    “archerD Says:

    Calm down, DavidM.
    No one’s forcing you to watch women.

    I for one like to watch women do ANYTHING
    You prefer to sit with men watching other half-naked men…Its OK”

    Dude, I was calm. You’re the one using words with all caps. You also sound like a horny chauvinist virgin who only watches Gina fight because you like to see women touch each other. I guess it breaks the monotony for you of watching porn on your computer 24 hours a day.

    Furthermore, you sound like a fucking homophobe for saying that I like to watch half naked men fight. Dude, if you don’t like men’s mma, then why are you on this site to begin with? Did you type in “Gina Carano naked” and end up here? Get a life you fucking clown.

  22. […] Cyborg fight this weekend. In the video, Mauro Ranallo says the fight ‘markets itself’, but Zach Arnold disagrees. Some were saying Carano vs Cyborg would get more mainstream press hype than UFC 101. Unfortunately, […]

  23. frankp316 says:

    It’s mostly the media’s fault. Both Gina and Cyborg complained about the constant Beauty vs Beast questions in recent interviews. Did you watch the press conference? If all these guys are gonna do is ask the same stupid questions repeatedly, why would either of them want to talk to any of them.

  24. Jonathan says:

    I threw the Fightopinion out there on the Sherdog Radio Network and this story.

  25. IceMuncher says:

    It just got worse for women’s MMA. The UFC is counter programming the Carano/Cyborg Strikeforce card with UFC 100 on Spike. Combined with the poor buzz for the event, this is going to turn out very poorly for them.

  26. Mark says:

    Yikes, that’s pretty severe for a fight nobody was going to watch anyway. Airing UFC Knockouts or a Fight Night would have been enough for this.

  27. Alan Conceicao says:

    The Carano/Cyborg fight could be a success by the standards of Showtime and the predictable running counter will be how many more people watched the replayed fights and the doom it spells.

  28. 45 Huddle says:

    They should have saved UFC 100 for the Fedor fight….

  29. 45 Huddle says:

    UFC 100 is showing…. Lesnar/Mir, Bisping/Henderson, Akiyama/Belcher, Coleman/Bonnar, Jones/O’Brien, & Grice/Guggerty.

    I don’t have Showtime anyways (cancelled cable) but show the Coleman and Jones fights makes me more interested in UFC 100…. Except for Babalu/Mousasi…

  30. Ivan Trembow says:

    This is from last week, but there was a New York Times profile of Gina Carano:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/sports/04mma.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=gina+Carano&st=nyt

    I’m looking forward to 45 Huddle reading it and then going on about how dumb Carano is and how much he can’t stand her…

  31. Ivan Trembow says:

    “I don’t have Showtime anyways”

    Didn’t you say that prior to one of Strikeforce’s other events on Showtime, only to post that you subscribed to Showtime shortly before the event, and then spent the entire event basically live-blogging how much you hated it? Can we look forward to the same thing happening again?

  32. IceMuncher says:

    45, if I had to guess, I’d say the UFC will put on a live card to counter the Fedor fight. Affliction: Banned was counter-programmed by an A. Silva headlined UFN card on Spike.

  33. 45 Huddle says:

    Ivan,

    I’ve cancelled cable since then. When the guy came to my house, he didn’t have a device to stop the cable coming into my house. He said he would return, but never did. So I’m getting the first 70 channels for free. UFC PPV’s will be puchased online now.

    I’m hoping it’s temporary… Job market isn’t exactly great right now.

    As for the NY Time article, I have read it. It doesn’t represent how she comes off on TV. She does a lot of giggling and um’s when she is talking. Comes across very immature. Even when the camera is just showing her (no talking), she can’t stop from having the goofy smile. It comes off very immature. Print doesn’t do it justice….

    IceMuncher,

    That makes sense.

  34. […] a semi-related note, is Strikeforce and Showtime dropping the ball in selling the first women’s superfight to the mass public? I think so. This fight/event […]

  35. […] a semi-related note, is Strikeforce and Showtime dropping the ball in selling the first women’s superfight to the mass public? I think so. This fight/event […]

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