Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano Headline Netflix's First MMA Event on May 16
ronda rousey and Gina Carano will headline the first-ever MMA event broadcast live on Netflix on Saturday, May 16, at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. The main event puts two of women’s MMA’s earliest major stars on the same card, with the 145-pound bout set for five five-minute rounds under four-ounce gloves.
Rousey Carano Set For May 16
The event begins at 6 p.m. ET with a five-fight preliminary card, and the six-fight main card starts at 9 p.m. ET on Netflix. Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions is staging the card, which runs 11 fights in all.
Francis Ngannou is scheduled to fight Philipe Lins, and Nate Diaz will face Mike Perry on the same card. That gives the show more than one headline attraction, but Rousey and Carano remain the main draw because the platform is new and the matchup reaches back to the early years of women’s MMA.
Rousey And Carano History
Rousey, 39, won the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight title in 2012 and defended it six consecutive times in the UFC from 2013 to 2015. She retired after back-to-back knockout losses to Holly Holm in 2015 and Amanda Nunes in 2016, then became the first woman inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2018.
Carano, 43, fought Julie Kedzie in the first-ever women’s fight televised on Showtime in 2007, then headlined a major MMA event with Cris Cyborg in 2009 for the Strikeforce featherweight championship. She retired from MMA after that bout, and the return now gives her a rare chance to step back into the cage on a global card built around her name and Rousey’s.
BetMGM Numbers On The Bout
BetMGM opened Rousey as a -650 betting favorite and Carano as a +450 underdog. Those numbers place the former champion in front before the first bell, even as the fight’s real selling point is not just the odds but the scale of the broadcast around it.
The first live MMA card on Netflix gives the sport a platform it has never had before, and the May 16 main event is designed to carry that spotlight. For fans tracking the event, the practical details are already set: Los Angeles, the Intuit Dome, an 11-fight lineup, and a 9 p.m. ET main card built around Rousey and Carano.
