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LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 30: (R-L) Amanda Nunes of Brazil punches Ronda Rousey in their UFC women's bantamweight championship bout during the UFC 207 event at T-Mobile Arena on December 30, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images) | Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Upset special?
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey opened as the -700 betting favorite over ex-Strikeforce attraction Gina Carano ahead of their MVP main event on Netflix this Sat. night (May 16, 2026) at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. But that doesn’t mean “Rowdy” is guaranteed to emerge the winner.
UFC welterweight veteran Matt Brown is picking “Conviction” for the upset.
“I think it’s going to be an ugly fight for the most part,” Brown told MMA Fighting. “Here’s why I’m going to go with Gina Carano — I think Gina’s naturally a little bit bigger than Ronda. I think during this down time, I don’t know either of them personally, but I’m going to assume just from the personalities that I know online and the media, that Carano probably attempted at least to stay in better shape. Where Ronda I think just quit training all together and was just out and now she’s coming back.”
Rousey claims it was the other way around.
“Lastly, Ronda is a lot more predictable,” Brown added. “For one thing, she doesn’t go and shoot double legs. It’s going to be a judo style takedown, which is a little bit more predictable. She’s got to get in the clinch and try to attempt to throw. If Gina does some of the basic things, she should be able to mitigate that. With that said, it will probably be ugly as hell. Ugly as all hell. It’s going to be nothing to write home about. I’m going to go Carano and plus I’m a bigger fan of Carano, too, so maybe a little bit of bias there too.”
Sounds like God is a bigger fan of Carano, too.
“The thing is everything Ronda does can be mitigated pretty easily,” Brown said. “I shouldn’t say easily but you can learn pretty quickly how to not get armbarred. You can learn pretty quickly how to not get judo tossed. Holly Holm wrote the blueprint on it. I don’t think Ronda got a single takedown on her. Because judo is a specific sport where you’re wearing a gi and you’ve got the grips and you’re doing certain things with that. Where it’s transferred over to no-gi or MMA, it’s limited. Not that it’s not great for that, I love judo, I think it’s an amazing sport but only certain moves carry over. It’s a very limited amount of moves.”
That may explain how this 2022 upset happened.
“So Gina has a limited amount of things she has to train for against Ronda whereas Ronda has to train to get her striking better and she was training that for a long time and it never got better,”Brown added. “I don’t think she has the natural intuitiveness to be a striker ever. That combined with the size and just guessing Gina’s probably more inclined to stay in shape over 17 years.”
Rousey, 39, walked away from cage fighting in late 2016 after suffering back-to-back knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes. As for Carano, 44, she called it quits following her technical knockout defeat to Cris Cyborg under the now-defunct Strikeforce banner in summer 2009.
For the rest of the “Rousey vs. Carano” fight card click here.
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