Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions rolled into Los Angeles, California this afternoon (Tue. Mar 10th, 2026) to launch their big Netflix MMA debut featuring Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano and Francis Ngannou vs. Phillipe Lins. That goes down May 16th from the Intuit Dome, and it’s expected they’ll sell over 18,000 tickets to the event.
Carano and Rousey are two of the most reclusive stars in the sport, but both were in good spirits at the press conference … although they did admit returning to mixed
martial arts was not a decision they approached lightly. Rousey credited her return to helping a friend earn his judo black belt.
“I had put a lot of walls around my heart when it came to martial arts and everything like that,” Rousey admitted. “I was forced to retire over some neurological issues that I I didn’t really have any clarity about, and it just hurt to be around it. But once I started getting deep into it again and explaining things and getting back to it, it made me fall in love with martial arts again. It reminded me of the joy that it gave me from the very beginning and why I love it so much.”
“Once I found that love again and I saw [Gina] not doing well, I was like, ‘You know what? We both need to reclaim our bodily identity together, rewrite our own endings together.’ So I reached out to her, and it’s been such a journey to get here and so many obstacles and so many people tried to get in between us and insert their own agenda.”
Carano said she got the call at the end of 2024 from Dana White relaying Rousey’s challenge.
“Dana gave me a call,” she said. “And he said, ‘Ronda’s pregnant. I think she’s nine months pregnant, and she wants to fight, and she said the only one she wants to fight is you.’ And at that time, I was extremely sick in my body. I had had a couple of tough, rough years, like I think a lot of us had. And at that time I was like, ‘You know what? Absolutely.’ And then it just became more and more real as 2025 went on.”
“And, it is pretty incredible and surreal to be here today,” Carano concluded. “It’s healing. It’s exciting. It’s everything I could have hoped for. I didn’t know I needed this so bad.”
Rousey revealed more details of how close the fight came to happening under the UFC banner.
“Originally, we were gonna do a New Year’s [event], and it was gonna be the last fight under the pay-per-view model,” Rousey said. “And [Dana White] offered me the best pay-per-view structure ever. And I was so grateful. But then Gina said she needed more time to get in the best shape possible, and that she wanted me to to fight the best version of herself. And I think that was fate. It was meant to be. It was meant to push us onto the other side.”
Her gratitude and love towards Dana White did not extend to TKO, who owns UFC now. Rousey accused the public company of taking White’s power away and putting the promotion in value extraction mode.
“It used to be that UFC was the best place to go in combat sports to make a living and be paid fairly,” she said. “Now it’s one of the worst places to go. It’s why so many of their top athletes are leaving to go and find pay elsewhere. It’s why their champions like Valentina are selling pictures of their t–ties on OnlyFans, you know?”
“A lot of them at the ground level, they can’t even support their families. They’re living poverty-level fighting full time. And this company just got $7.7 billion. There’s no reason they can’t afford to pay their athletes at least a living wage, and not even that, to at least be able to match what these athletes are making in other sports.”
“Why would they expect to get the best athletes and the best aspiring kids that want to be something into MMA?” Rousey asked. “Why not go into football? Why not go into boxing? Why not go into anything else? And so they’re bleeding talent because of their short term greed. They’re thinking about the next quarter. They’re thinking about the shareholders, and they’re not thinking about their responsibility to be, you know, stewards of the of the future of the sport.”
“Once they’ve moved into the streaming model, it’s just not about putting on the best fights possible anymore,” Rousey declared. “Dana is legally beholden to the shareholders and to maximize shareholder value. And unfortunately, now that they’ve taken the reins from the company away from him, it’s barely recognizable now. They need to be saved from themselves, and luckily, I’m here to be their hero.”
Ronda would be our hero too if she manages to get mainstream attention on the cheapskate ways of the UFC these days. Obliterating Gina Carano in 30 seconds with a judo throw to armbar combo will probably be easy. Taking on the bean counters at TKO? Now that’s a fight.
