Gina Carano remembers exactly what she was thinking when she became part of one of MMA’s most famous clips.
Back when Carano was a star attraction for the Strikeforce promotion, she was caught on camera in the crowd and delivered a facial gesture that has gone down in history. Carano looked into the camera and coyly bit her lip, creating a viral moment that has been immortalized in gifs and memes for years.
Ahead of her upcoming comeback fight against Ronda Rousey on May 16, which
airs live on Netflix as part of Most Valuable Promotions’ first-ever MMA card, Carano addressed the clip in an interview with Yahoo! Sports, offering an explanation that would make the Diaz brothers proud.
“I don’t smoke weed, but I had smoked weed [that night],” Carano said. “And I was just living in my head.”
So there you have it, Carano had simply been indulging in the wacky tobaccy and was in a mischievous mood when it was time for her close-up. Her spontaneous reaction also came about due to the fact that she kept ending up on camera, so it was only a matter of time until she lost her composure.
“I don’t know,” Carano said. “The cameraman just kept on putting—and I thought it was in my head because I was a little bit stoned. I don’t smoke weed anymore because I’m not a weed smoker, it’s just too much for me. I don’t like anything that, like, I don’t even really drink anymore barely. I’m like a whole different person.
“It was just in my head, I was like, ‘Is this guy putting the camera on me a lot or am I just being super paranoid?’ It turns out he was putting the camera on me a lot, so what was going through my head, just like, ‘Act normal. Act normal,’ and that happens. So it was a total stoner moment.”
Now that the mystique of the moment is gone, Carano wonders if it will be diminished ever so slightly in the eyes of the fans. As it turns out, there was no profound thought passing through Carano’s mind at the time, just an all-too-relatable flash of awkwardness.
“It kind of takes away from the specialness of it, but I was just kind of like, ‘Does this guy keep on looking at me? Do something with your face. OK,’” Carano said.
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