Pepsi pulled the trick on Super Bowl Sunday, when female star Gina Carano was featured in a commercial to spearhead the company’s newest advertising campaign, “Refresh Anthem.”

Halfway through the minute-long spot, Carano appears on a split screen, throwing a flurry of strikes at the camera alongside Kung-Fu and martial arts icon Bruce Lee. “Every generation refreshes the world” is the ad’s tagline.

Bubbly, sweet, and she can whip your butt.

Ready or not, folks, Carano might be on the launching pad to uncharted territory. Yes, in a few years, she could well be considered the most popular female athlete in the world.

The mantle is presently pretty bare, given that, through the years, our top female stars have either lacked in ability or attractiveness (that’s not sexist; that’s realist), or competed in sports that don’t appeal to the masses.

Thanks to MMA’s recent upsurge and her unblemished-yet-brief history in the sport, Carano defies each of those categories.

Seven-and-0 as a professional, Carano hasn’t fought since Oct. 14 (a unanimous decision over Kelly Kobold) and she’s reportedly in negotiations with Strikeforce, which purchased the rights to fighter contracts that were previously owned by the defunct EliteXC. Despite her idle status, though, Carano’s selection by Pepsi keeps the brunette brawler at the center of the sport and the peak of curiosity.

At the same time, it puts a pretty face on a brutal game that can only benefit from the exposure of a national advertisement.

With her “American Gladiator” fame and Maxim looks, Carano clearly could make a decent living outside of fighting. Lucky for us, however, her Strikeforce negotiations show that she’s committed to MMA for a while -- unlike her closest male counterpart, Roger Huerta. (Man, think of what it would be like if Carano and Huerta got together. They’d be the “Brangelina” of MMA. We could call them “Rogina.”)

Do you think a better Pepsi pick would have been one of the sport’s pound-for-pound studs, like Fedor or Silva or GSP or Chuck or Randy?

Think again.

Of those guys, the first three don’t speak English (well or at all), and latter two have seen their drawing power fade a bit with age. Such flaws, while minor, devalue marketability.