John
Wood thinks it’s possible he works with Gina Carano for another
fight. | Sarah Stier/Getty Images for Netflix
After nearly 17 years away, Gina Carano
only got to spend 17 seconds in the cage in her mixed martial arts
return.
Carano succumbed to a Ronda
Rousey armbar in the main event of Most Valuable Promotions’
first MMA card this past Saturday at the Intuit Dome in Los
Angeles. In her post-fight interview, Carano
admitted that she would have liked a chance to show more in her
first fight since Aug. 15, 2009. Coach John Wood,
who led Carano’s camp, also believes that she might have more to
prove before she walks away from the sport for good.
“I do not believe that that itch has been scratched yet for Gina,
but we’ll see,” Wood told Home
of Fight. “There’s a lot of things already coming at her. I
could tell you, behind the scenes, there’s a lot of activity
already, so ultimately the decision is hers. It was never a need
for money. This was a personal thing for her to come back and do
this.
“Truthfully for me, she found the love of fighting again. As a
coach, I see somebody in the room who, she can still fight. And
there’s a lot of people that she can still beat, I guarantee you.
You know, I think with the right matchups and the right, fair
matchups, that we can have some fun out there. So we’ll see what
she decides to do.”
Carano was an early pioneer for women’s MMA, facing Julie
Kedzie in the first women’s fight to be broadcast on national
television. She was victorious in her first seven professional
outings before falling to Cristiane
Justino via first-round technical knockout under the
Strikeforce banner. Ahead of her comeback fight against Rousey,
Carano revealed she lost more than 100 pounds as a result of her
training.
Filling the Void?
With that work out of the way, Wood has hopes that Carano will take
another fight in the not too distant future.
“I personally would like to see her do it again,” Wood said. “I
personally would like to see her take the work that we did and
actually have another camp that would be focused on just fighting
because all the hard work, the bulls—t, the weight cut has been
done. I would love to see her have another camp and do a fun
fight.
“Do I think she’s going to do it? I would lean more to yes than no.
I feel like there’s going to be kind of the same thing that Ronda
had — that empty hole that was left in her. Gina’s gonna have that
now after going through this process and being fired up. I think
that maybe we see another one.”
🚨👀 Gina
Carano’s coach John Wood
says she can still beat a lot of fighters and believes she’ll fight
again soon:“I see somebody in the room who, she can still fight, dude. And
there’s a lot of people that she can still beat, I guarantee you.
You know, I think with the right… pic.twitter.com/K0nfeF4s0O— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight)
May 20, 2026