It was a huge night for Showtime and Strikeforce Saturday as their Heavyweight Grand Prix got off to a great, albeit surprising, start. The excitement was bolstered by an announcement made between fights that Gina Carano would be returning to the ring (an item revealed earlier in the evening by MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani).
In an awkward interview where Carano was acting shyly, the woman called the female face of MMA said she owed it to herself to get back to fighting after taking a year and a half off. “I think I need to settle the score with myself really, I need to get back in there for me,” Carano said.
Gina’s most recent experience in the ring was a bludgeoning by 145-pound champion Cyborg Santos (video of that fight here). She spent some of her time off filming the movie Haywire that is due out in April, and it was recently revealed that she’s begun training again in Las Vegas.
In a voiceover that played during a highlight package of Carano, she said “I just want to walk away from it knowing I left it all there — I left it all in the cage.” It’s clear that she still has something left to prove inside the octagon. Her desire is certainly the fans’ gain.
