MMA fighter bio series Gina Carano

      This is the first article in a new series that provides a bio for the top MMA fighters. Because of the lack of publicity for the women of MMA, this series will do something probably unsuspected, and bio the most popular, and probably the best pound for pound female Mixed Martial Artist, Gina Carano.

     Gina was born in Dallas County Texas, the daughter of a former Dallas Cowboy. She graduated high school in Las Vegas, NV where she was the star basketball player. At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she majored in psychology. Her martial arts career started in Muay Thai, and was later offered a chance to participate in the very first sanctioned MMA fight for women. Moving on to the Elite XC card aired on Showtime, she became on of the most recognized names and faces in female Mixed Martial Arts. She has an undefeated MMA record of 7-0.

     Gina has become as familiar of a face outside the cage as she has in. The new American Gladiators airing on network T.V. gave her an opportunity to display her athletic ability as the Gladiator ‘Crush’. As an actress, she starred in the film Ring Girls and is featured in the new film Blood and Bone. Big Biz Magazine readers voted Gina ‘Hottest Woman in America’, while Maxim’s Hot 100 list has her at number 16. As the third most searched person on Yahoo, she was ranked her number 5 on the ‘Top Influential Women of 2008’.  Along with fellow MMA star, Randy ‘The Natural’ Coutre, Gina was featured on the recently released Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 video/PC game.

     Intelligent, talented, beautiful, well spoken, as well as one heck of a fighter, Gina Carano is the right person to lead female MMA mainstream with the men. Her fights are exciting to watch and she definitely goes out there to put on a show, but I wish they would last longer. Right now, almost all sanctioned female MMA fights are 3, 3 minute rounds. These are very talented women who train very hard and deserve the chance to fight five minute rounds just like the men. Although it has been talked about over and over, we have yet to see the championship belts in the women’s division. As an MMA fan, I would like to see Gina take on Chrisians ‘Cyborg’ Santos for the first women’s championship belt. This fight would also make the perfect Main Event for Strikeforce, and if they were to televise it on CBS, it would allow everyone to see how exciting women’s MMA can be.