Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) star Ronda Rousey will fight the pioneering women’s MMA fighter, Gina Carano, on Saturday, May 16, 2026, as the legendary martial artists come out of long retirements to finally face-off.
The fight, which is part of the first MMA card to be shown on Netflix and will be produced by Most Valuable Promotions, will take place at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.
The card will also include a heavyweight matchup between Francis Ngannou and Philipe Lins, as well as a fight between Nate Diaz and Mike Perry.
Here’s everything you need to know about the card.
The main card will start at about 9pm Eastern time on Saturday (01:00 GMT on Sunday).
The preliminaries will start at about 6pm Eastern time on Saturday (22:00 GMT).
The main card will stream globally on Netflix and is included in all subscriptions.
The preliminary fights will be streamed on Tudum.
The featherweight (140lb, 63.5kg) fight is scheduled for five five-minute rounds, and the fighters will wear 4-ounce (113g) gloves.
They will follow the Unified Rules of MMA, which have been adopted by major promotions such as the UFC.
Pride and bragging rights since there is no title on the line.
Carano, 44, and Cris Cyborg were the first women to headline a major MMA event during their 2009 bout in the Strikeforce promotion. Carano retired after losing that fight with a record of 7-1.
Rousey, 39, arguably became the most famous athlete in women’s combat sports history as she won six consecutive UFC fights, with many ending in less than a minute.
But she retired with a record of 12-2 after back-to-back defeats to Holly Holm in November 2015 and Amanda Nunes in December 2016.
When Rousey lost her final two UFC fights and realised she needed to prioritise her health, including her increasing susceptibility to concussions, she left the spotlight of the cage for acting and professional wrestling, followed by marriage and two children.
“I had to allow my body to rest and heal,” Rousey told The Associated Press news agency.
Rousey also told ABC Sport Daily that she had lost her love for MMA towards the end.
“I think that’s what I was missing towards the end of my career … I just didn’t want to be there any more,” she said in a recent interview.
But now she says she’s happy to be fighting again on her terms.
“This is my chance to really change all of those prior associations and make this thing mine again,” she said.
Meanwhile, on social media a few weeks ago, Rousey criticised the UFC’s upcoming White House event as an “oligarch shmooze fest” while promoting her own fight.
“I know I’m biased, but I can’t remember ever seeing a single card more stacked than this in MMA history,” she wrote on Instagram about Saturday’s Netflix card. “This is what happens when fighters come together and bet on themselves – change is coming, we are not expendable – WE ARE THIS BUSINESS!!
“This is a fight card for EVERYONE, not some oligarch shmooze fest (*cough* #whitehousecard *cough!), tickets start at just $68 @intuitdome!!!”
Carano has had a successful acting career since retiring from MMA, notably as Cara Dune in the Star Wars series The Mandalorian.
But she says she wants to remind people of her fighting legacy and that she is taking on Rousey to win.
“I get to revive and reveal the fighting side of me because a lot of people either forgot or weren’t around the last time I fought,” Carano told ESPN in April.
“I’ve heard people say Ronda Rousey is fighting the girl from The Mandalorian. No, I had a whole life that opened the doors to those movie opportunities, and it was me being a fighter, a genuine fighter who broke a lot of barriers.
“Everything I’ve gone through leading to this point already feels like a victory, but I’m not fighting Ronda just to say I fought Ronda Rousey. I’m fighting to win.”
Rousey is currently a heavy -600 favourite (with an estimated 86 percent win likelihood) according to sportsbooks, with Carano a +425 underdog.
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