Gina Carano immediately suspended from MMA after 15 second loss to Ronda Rousey
Gina Carano was suspended from fighting in MMA immediately after losing out to Ronda Rousey in just 15 seconds, but with good reason.
Rousey, 39, romped to victory, submitting Carano with an armbar within just 15 seconds in their comeback fight after being absent from MMA for 10 years.
Prior to the fight Rousey had said that she had wanted to 'rewrite her ending in the sport', and called Carano her 'hero'.
"Gina is a person who brought me into MMA, she is the only person who could bring me back into MMA. She's my hero," said Rousey.
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But following the fight, Carano has now been suspended from fighting after losing out to Rousey, and this is standard practice in the sport.
Combat sports like MMA and boxing can take a big toll on an athlete's body, which is unsurprising given that you are effectively beating each other up.
This result in bad injuries, including broken ribs and jaws, eye injuries, and of course trauma to the head.
So athletes are routinely barred from fighting for a set period after a match in order to make sure that they can properly recover.
Let's put it this way - you wouldn't go back to work with three broken ribs, so sporting bodies will bar athletes from competing for a mandatory rest period.
This helps to ensure that they can spend time recovering before getting back to it, and is enforced as an athlete may be keen to get back in the ring despite not being fit to do so, and not giving themselves time to rest properly.
How long someone is suspended for depends on several factors, including the assessment of a ringside physician who will determine whether someone needs a rest period, and if so for how long.
While some suspensions are just for a set period of time, for example one week, others require an athlete to meet certain conditions before being cleared to compete again to demonstrate that are fit enough.
There are different levels to suspension as well, depending on the physical condition of an athlete after a match.
One level, the lower, is a no competition suspension, meaning that the athlete can't go into any competitive matches for this period.
However, they will be allowed to spar with contact during training.
The second higher level is a 'no contact' or 'no sparring' suspension, where someone's injuries are deemed to be serious enough that they require a period of no contact sport at all to allow their body to recover.
These might be paired with a clearance requirement, such as being signed off by a doctor, getting certain medical scans, or even being signed off by a specialist.
Another example of such suspensions was in the fight between Jake Paul and Anthony Joshua.
This saw Joshua breaking Paul's jaw during the fight, claiming victory.
Under boxing regulation, the fighters were required to have three days' rest per round, and if someone has a technical knockout then they are suspended for 30 days to allow them to recover, while a full knockout is at least 60 days
Kit Roberts