‘She’s gutted’: Gina Carano’s head coach reacts to 17-second loss to Ronda Rousey, reveals original game plan for the fight

Gina Carano fought for the first time in 17 years when she made her comeback at the debut MVP MMA card this past weekend, but her return to action ultimately lasted just 17 seconds.

The fight was over almost as quickly as it started, with Ronda Rousey securing an early takedown and almost immediately transitioning to her signature armbar, which forced Carano to tap out. It was an anticlimactic end after Carano last fought all the way back in 2009 before she turned her full attention towards acting instead.

“Anything that ends in 17 seconds is disappointing,” Carano’s head coach, John Wood, told MMA Fighting. “It’s one of those things where she was absolutely ready. I’d love to have a crack at another camp where a lot of [this] camp was weight loss and diet — she was very motivated to make sure she made weight, which she did a great job at. But she was ready, and especially that last week before the fight, the fight week, I became such a believer. I was like damn, she’s going to do this. She looked so good. So crisp. So ready to just go.

“But unfortunately, the thing is, when you have somebody like Ronda, who is so good at what she does, and this isn’t a fluke. It’s not like Ronda hasn’t done this 15 other times in under a minute. She’s done one quicker. I think it was 12 seconds she got one. So it’s not like oh my god, how did this happen? We needed to have a really good, almost perfect night, for things to align, and fighting is hardly ever perfect.”

Wood says he knew there was a possibility that Rousey could deliver a lightning-quick finish just like she’s done numerous times throughout her career. Obviously, Carano never even got a chance to show what she learned training at Syndicate MMA in Las Vegas for the past six months, but Wood knows the fight game can be cruel, and that’s exactly what happened this past Saturday night.

“I can tell you the game plan was obviously get out there and move a little bit and go, but Gina, she is a fighter,” Wood said. “She’s down to fight. She’s down to throw down. That girl does not shy away from a fight. She’s down to scrap. Even though there was probably in her mind a little margin of error, there just wasn’t in this fight. She went out, threw one jab, one inside kick, and boom. It was always going to be this or that, and unfortunately, that happened. We didn’t get to do much of this.

“She was ready. The camp was taken serious. She put in six months of work. Anybody that says it was rigged, she’s gutted. No one wanted to get out there and fight more than her. She was ready.”

Wood scoffed at the idea that Carano somehow threw the fight because it ended so quickly.

Never mind the fact that Rousey’s popularity was largely built around her mauling her competition on the ground and wrapping up several lightning-quick submissions, but Wood knows Carano — despite all the smiles and hugs after the fight — was devastated by the loss

“She was upset she let us down or upset that we didn’t get to have the fight [we wanted],” Wood said. “It’s never about us but for her; there are fighters that are fighters, and then there are fighters that are fighters, and Gina is one of those. She wants to get down. She’s down to scrap. In the gym, a lot of the training was getting her not to have such a crazy brawl. She even told me, and we spoke afterwards, that’s the best she’s ever felt in her whole career. Calm, focused, and knowing she did a proper camp. Just didn’t get to use anything that we worked on. I think she really wanted to show all the improvements that she made.

“Had we been able to keep it on the feet and go, there was nothing going to be but hurtful intent in those punches. Just like Ronda. Her intent was to take her down and break her arm, and she almost did! You can be as friendly as you want, but those girls were in there to do harm to each other … she’s definitely gutted and heartbroken that she didn’t get to display all the hard work she put in.”

So what exactly was the game plan?

Wood revealed that Carano actually hoped to model her performance after former UFC two-division champion Amanda Nunes, who tore through Rousey in just 48 seconds when they met back in 2016.

“The first round was going to be hands and move,” Wood said. “Get on that bike. We needed to kill that first two minutes off. Slow things down because we knew she was coming hot and heavy. [Stay] behind the jab and circling. Honestly, the game plan was very much like Ronda and Amanda [Nunes]. To catch her when she’s coming forward. To catch her when she’s coming in. Give ourselves time to let that happen. I really, truly believed that was something that was really big, that was possible of happening.

“Boxing and footwork was the main premise of this. Obviously, takedown defense. But hey, the girl is a kickboxer at heart and shit happens.”

Make no mistake, Carano was prepared for Rousey’s inevitable takedown attempts, but Wood knows in the heat of the moment in a fight the best and worst can happen in an instant.

“It was something that we were prepared for,” Wood said. “We practiced as much defending the double-leg [takedown] because I actually think Gina would have stopped her from the throws so we were prepared for that. But again, every fight you don’t expect it. She shot out of a cannon. I can tell you this, the game plan was never to go out and throw a kick off the bat but again, it is what it is. It’s fighting. You feel something, and you do it.

“That one mistake, which we just needed to have no mistakes, especially in that first round. That was the most dangerous round. It wasn’t even really a mistake. It just wasn’t what we were looking to do. There you go. Ronda is such a specialist that she capitalizes on the tiniest of things.”

Following the loss, Cararo admitted she was leaving the cage unfulfilled because she not only trained to win but she was ready to go to war, and ultimately only got 17 seconds of a fight.

That’s why Wood isn’t closing the door on Carano returning to Syndicate MMA in the future and going through another training camp to get ready for a fight.

“I definitely think it’s not out of the question,” Wood said about Carano fighting again. “I think Ronda’s pretty much a hard no. I do not believe Gina is a hard no. She’s even said that. I can’t speak for her, and I can’t speak how she’s going to feel in a couple of weeks when all of this settles down.

“Again, I think there’s an itch there that hasn’t been scratched. I think that it kind of woke up something in her. She loves training again. She loves that gym atmosphere. I think it’s healthier than she’s felt in a long time and probably the better Gina than even so far as 15 years ago. So, for me, I would love to see her take another crack at it. But ultimately it’s her [decision]. The one thing I can say about it, it’s definitely not a no yet. There is a world where we do see it happen.”