Length of Gina Carano’s immediate MMA suspension confirmed after 15 second Ronda Rousey loss
The length of Gina Carano's MMA suspension has been confirmed, following her loss to Ronda Rousey.
Carano stepped into the hexagon for the first time in nearly 20 years to fight the former WWE star over the weekend for a Netflix bout. The headline fight ended after just 17 seconds when Rousey put her in an armbar, her 10th career win from using the move.
Both fighters were immediately suspended after the match concluded, as is customary for combat sports to ensure athletes' safety, with the length of Carano and Rousey's ban now confirmed.
According to MMAmania, both Carano and Rousey are prohibited from fighting for seven days.
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Why have Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano been suspended from MMA?
Rousey and Carano's suspension isn't due to anything they've done in the hexagon, as all athletes who take part in combat sports are subject to a mandatory medical rest period.
According to guidelines set by the International Sport Combat Federation (ISCF) - which regulates bouts in North America, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia, and South Africa - a fighter must wait seven days, or 168 hours, before stepping into the ring or cage to fight again.
However, this suspension can be significantly longer if an athlete is seriously hurt during a match.
Should either Carano or Rousey have been knocked unconscious during the fight, they would've been subject to a longer 30-day ban.
Meanwhile, several other athletes on the fight card received longer bans from the sport, with Junior dos Santos being handed an indefinite suspension after being brutally knocked out by Robelis Despaigne, while Nate Diaz was slapped with a 180-day suspension after fracturing a finger and receiving a series of nasty cuts.
There are also different levels of suspension, depending on how injured an athlete is from the match.
The lower level suspension is typically a non-competition suspension, which means that while an athlete cannot compete in a match they are allowed to spar with contact during training.
Meanwhile, a higher-level suspension sees an athlete barred from all forms of contact until their body is healed enough.
Jake Paul was handed an extended suspension after his brutal loss to Anthony Joshua, with the influencer-turned-boxer sustaining a broken jaw during the KO defeat.
Will Gina Carano and Ronda Rousey return to MMA?
Carano retired from the sport in 2009, spending 17 years outside the ring before returning to fight Rousey. While her future in the sport is currently unclear, Rousey has confirmed that she has once again retired – this time for good.
"This is the perfect closure and the perfect way to walk away and say goodbye," Rousey told Sky Sports after the fight.
"[Carano is] the one that inspired me to do this in the first place and she's the one that inspired me to come back," she added.
"I wasn't like 'oh I feel like I need a fight, I need to pick Gina'. I saw Gina and was like 'she makes me want to fight one more time, for the last time'."
How much did Gina Carano get paid for the fight?
The gruelling year-and-a-half workout regimen and seven-day suspension will have been more than worth it for Carano when it comes to financial compensation, as the 44-year-old received $1.05 million (£786,200) for the fight, while Rousey made a cool $2.2 million (£1.6m), excluding bonuses.
A pretty tidy sum for 17 seconds in the ring.
Topics: MMA, Ronda Rousey
Brenna Cooper