Gina Carano and Holly Holm are reportedly trading places at the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) contract negotiation table.
Two months ago the trainer for Holly Holm, a former professional female boxer who now boasts a perfect (7-0) mixed martial arts (MMA) record, revealed that World Series of Fighting (WSOF) was offering "Preacher's Daughter" more money to take her game to the next level.
Company president Dana White seemingly couldn't care less because he was "not interested whatsoever."
Meanwhile, on a separate track, White and Co. were in hot pursuit of Gina Carano, the trailblazing "face" of MMA who broke down barriers for other females in the sport during her tenure with Strikeforce. In fact, despite not competing for almost five years, White was confident as recently as two weeks ago that a "pain-in-the-ass" deal with Carano "should happen."
Things have changed in a major way, at least according to "UFC Tonight" insider Ariel Helwani, who earlier this evening offered the following update:
"Talks with Holly Holm are in a good place and progressing. The talks with Gina Carano have stalled. She’s a free agent at this time."
With women's Bantamweight champion -- and UFC's pay-per-view (PPV) queen -- Ronda Rousey set to return to action against the relatively unknown Alexis Davis this upcoming Fourth of July weekend, the viable contender cupboard moving forward is alarmingly thin.
Of course, Cat Zingano is waiting in the wings, but after her the outlook looks bleak. Indeed, UFC needs to land a star (or two) such as Holm and/or Carano to keep Rousey -- and fans -- interested in fresh, familiar and exciting challenges.
Carano and Holm certainly fit that bill, perhaps one more so than the other, but missing out on both would be a major loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment