Gina Carano – Inspiring Women All Over The World

Commonly referred to as the “face of women’s MMA” and nicknamed “Conviction”, Gina Carano is a Muay Thai specialist and a multi-talented mixed martial artist. She’s featured in films, video games and featured in “American Gladiators” as the gladiator Crush. Read more about her life and career below.

Early life

Gina Joy Carano was born in Texas in 1982 and has two sisters. She was active within volleyball, basketball and softball in her high school years in Las Vegas, Nevada and completed a major in psychology from the university there.

Muay Thai

Inspired by her ex-boyfriend, Gina took up Muay Thai fighting and became a fierce competitor within the sport. Muay Thai is a fight sport from Thailand, indeed it is their national sport, where competitors stand up while striking their opponent. It is also possible to use a number of clinching techniques while standing up. Muay Thai is commonly known as the “Art of Eight Limbs” as it makes use of eight points of contact – elbow and knee strikes in addition to kicks and punching.
Carano achieved a Muay Thai record of 12-1-1 and was soon invited to fight in the World Pro Fighting show in Las Vegas where she beat Rosi Sexton. After that her career in mixed martial arts took off and amongst other great achievements she was one of the competitors in the first female Strikeforce fight.

Outside MMA

But Gina Carano didn’t stick to just MMA fighting. In 2005 she starred in the film Ring Girls alongside fellow Muay Thai fighters Ardra Hernandez and Lisa King. In this inspiring film the girls play ordinary American women who set out to fight the world’s best female Muay Thai fighters. In addition, Carano functioned as a mentor for young and aspiring fight girls in the reality series of the same name, and appeared on “American Gladiators” as the fierce gladiator Crush. Since 2009 she has also starred in the films Blood and Bone and Haywire from 2011 (due to be released in January 2012) where she stars alongside Ewan McGregor as covert operative Mallory Kane who is double crossed during a secret mission and seeks revenge on the people who betrayed her.

To achieve this amount of success in such a short space of time is astonishing and truly an inspiration to young women around the world. We look forward to hearing what Gina will get up to in the future – who knows what she will achieve?

Keen amateur mixed martial artist Rita Mills shares her enthusiasm for her idol Gina Carano. Rita wants to inspire other women to join the MMA club and can recommend MMA gear from Made4Fighters.

No related posts.