Gina Carano Update: Conviction Still Unsure Of Fighting Future

Source: MMAFighting

Once the face of women's MMA, Gina Carano has been out of action since a 2009 beating to Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos ended her undefeated streak. Since then, she's followed in former trainer Randy Couture's footsteps, putting her focus into a budding movie career. Carano has been spending most of her time away from MMA filming the Steven Soderbergh helmed Haywire, which is set for release on January 20 of this year.

At last week's UFC 141: Lesnar vs. Overeem event in Las Vegas, MMAFighting's Ariel Helwani finally caught up to Carano, who, as usual, played coy about her fighting future. Explaining that she's been spending her time "filming a movie and living life, getting to know myself a little better," Carano admitted that the loss to Cyborg had her in poor spirits and questioning the future.

"I wanted so badly to do so well for so many people. I wanted to do so much for that fight and, in the fight, I think I had an adrenaline dump or I just wasn't myself, and I think a lot of people saw that, which was very kind of - it throws you off, you feel the rug is pulled out from underneath you. And I trained so hard for that fight, I was in the best shape I've ever been in, so it was really kind of devastating. I was really kind of like, 'What the hell just happened?' But, I didn't really have a lot of time to focus on it because then I got (the movie offer) immediately. So, really I've just been kind of learning in this past year, now that everything's settled down from the movie and everything, what I wanna do, who I wanna be, those kinds of things."

Carano was expected to make her return to the cage this past June, with the 29-year-old moving from Xtreme Couture to Greg Jackson's in order to prepare for her opponent, Sarah D'Alelio. Shortly before the fight was to take place, Carano was mysteriously removed from the card for an undisclosed medical issue.

She told Helwani that, had it not been for the movie, she would have probably returned to the cage already, though she stopped short of confirming that she has any plans to compete in MMA ever again. Currently, the 7-1 fighter has several projects outside of MMA laid out before her, though she won't commit to anything until the release of Haywire later this month.

"We do have a lot of opportunity and a lot of things that we're looking at. Really, I just honestly can't wait to get on the other side of (the movie premiere). I really do. I wanna get on the other side of January 20 and really just sit down and see what Gina really wants to do," she said.

When pressed over whether or not she's leaning one way or the other in regards to MMA competition, Carano would say only this: "We'll see. I don't know. I really don't have the answer. I think after January 20 we'll know a lot more."

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