Gina Carano will return to the MMA Octagon in just a couple of months, fighting fellow UFC legend Ronda Rousey in what was for years a dream fight (taking place quite a few years after it was considered a dream bout).
Carano and Rousey faced off at a recent press conference for the fight, which will air on Netflix and has been put together by Jake Paul’s ‘Most Valuable Promotions’.
The return to the Octagon may come as a surprise to many who followed Carano’s acting career, as she made her breakthrough in Star Wars show The Mandalorian and looked set to become a household name.
This included an announced spin-off TV show Rangers of the New Republic she was set to star in, but it all came crashing down.
Gina Carano had multiple controversies, including an ‘abhorrent’ post about Nazi Germany
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Gina Carano’s latter Star Wars career was littered with controversies. This included Anti-Vax views she posted on Twitter and Instagram as well as mocking LGBTQ+ campaigners for listing their pronouns in their bio on social media.
The final straw for Disney however came when she posted on Instagram, following these multiple controversies, to compare being a modern-day US Republican to being a Jewish person in Nazi Germany.
Carano reposted a meme on her Instagram story which showed a terrified Jewish woman being chased with a bat during the Holocaust.
The caption said: “Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbours.... even by children.
“Because history is edited, most people today don't realise that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbours hate them simply for being Jews.
“How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”
Carano was fired from both Star Wars projects but later sued Disney
Shortly after posting Carano took this down, but #FireGinaCarano began trending on social media – with fans later getting their wish.
Lucasfilm, the studio behind Star Wars, said in a statement following her firing: “Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future.
“Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
Carano would later sue Disney for wrongful termination, citing $75,000 and lost income which could’ve come out to a massive settlement if they were found guilty.
The actor had a massive funding aid for the lawsuit from Elon Musk, who paid for her legal fees, and she ended up settling out of court with Disney.
Carano said in a statement that she hoped it ‘brought some healing to the force’.
Despite this settlement however Carano’s acting career since The Mandalorian has been two films produced by far-right news sites Breitbart News and The Daily Wire respectively, one of which was a bizarre Hunter Biden ‘biopic’ starring alongside fellow disgraced former actor Laurence Fox.
Now, Carano is returning to where she made her name – the Octagon – and will fight Ronda Rousey 16 May.
Topics: Ronda Rousey, MMA, UFC, Netflix, Jake Paul, TV and Film, TV, Disney, Star Wars, Celebrity
Michael Slavin