Early life
Carano was born in Dallas County, Texas, the middle daughter of Dana Joy (née Cason) and Glenn Thomas Carano. She has two sisters. Carano has said that she has a "small percentage" of Italian ancestry. Her father played for the Dallas Cowboys as a backup quarterback from 1977–1983 and for the USFL Pittsburgh Maulers as a starter in 1984, their only year of operations.
She graduated from Trinity Christian High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she led the girls basketball team to a state title. She also played volleyball and softball. She attended the University of Nevada, Reno for a year and then University of Nevada, Las Vegas for three, where she majored in psychology.
Mixed martial arts career
Carano faced Elaina Maxwell at Strikeforce: Triple Threat on December 8, 2006. She won the fight via unanimous decision. Carano proved critics wrong when she defeated Maxwell for the second time; the first victory coming in a Muay Thai bout. The fight was the first female fight in Strikeforce.
She fought on the February 10, 2007, Showtime EliteXC card, defeating Julie Kedzie via unanimous decision in what was called the "Fight of the Night." The fight was the first televised female fight on Showtime.
Her scheduled bout against Jan Finney at the EliteXC/K-1 Dynamite!! USA event on June 2, 2007 was canceled due to illness. The Fight Network and other news outlets reported that she was rushed to the hospital via ambulance due to dehydration while attending a World Extreme Cagefighting event as a spectator.
Carano fought on the September 15, 2007, Showtime EliteXC card, where she defeated Tonya Evinger via rear naked choke for her first career win by submission. Carano impressed critics by holding her own on the ground before submitting Evinger late in the first round.
Carano defeated former HOOKnSHOOT Champion Kaitlin Young at EliteXC: Primetime on May 31, 2008. A day before the fight, Carano failed to make weight for her fight after weighing in at 144.5 lb (65.5 kg). Although most MMA organizations set weight classes at 135 (bantamweight) and 145 (featherweight) pounds (61.2 and 65.8 kg, respectively), EliteXC opted to create a women's weight class at 140 pounds.Carano agreed to forfeit 12.5% of her "show" purse to Young, and the fight remained on the card.
Leading up to her fight against Kelly Kobold, there was much controversy over whether or not Gina would make weight for the fight, as she had fought only once in the past year and had failed to make weight. Gina assured critics that she would be able to make weight since she had hired a nutritionist to help with her dieting. At the weigh-in for the Kobold fight on October 3, 2008, Gina Carano weighed in at 142.75 pounds on her first attempt. After removing her sports bra, a towel-covered Carano weighed in a second time at 142.5 pounds. On her third attempt, without any clothes on, Carano weighed 141 pounds and successfully made weight.
Early on, Kobold was intent on pressing Carano in the clinch, while working for the takedown throughout the fight. Kobold managed a takedown in the second round, but the round ended before she could take meaningful advantage of it. Carano worked her opportunities by hitting Kobold at every turn whenever the fighters separated, while opening a huge gash on the inside of her opponent's eyebrow in the first round. At the end of the third round, Carano looked to finish the fight as she unloaded a head kick that landed flush on Kobold's chin, but Kobold remained on her feet and the bout came to a close.
Carano won by unanimous decision (29–28, 30–27, 30–27) and remained undefeated. After she won, she dedicated the fight to her grandfather.
Strikeforce Women's Middleweight Championship bout
It was announced at Strikeforce: Lawler vs. Shields that Carano's fight against Cristiane Santos would take place on August 15, 2009, at Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg. Strikeforce created their first Women's Championship for the bout.
Though the 145-pound division is most commonly referred to as featherweight, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker stated that the title would be known as the Strikeforce Women's Lightweight Championship. The title was later renamed the Strikeforce Women's Middleweight Championship.
Carano lost the fight against Santos by TKO at 4:59 in the first round.
Television and film career
Along with Lisa King, Carano served as a mentor to aspiring female fighters in the Oxygen reality series Fight Girls. She appeared as "Crush" on the NBC show American Gladiators, in which she starred in the workout video of the show along with Monica Carlson (Jet), Jennifer Widerstrom (Phoenix), Michael O'Hearn (Titan), Tanoai Reed (Toa) and Don "Hollywood" Yates (Wolf). The DVD was released on December 16, 2008. She is featured in the Michael Jai White film Blood and Bone.
She has appeared in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 as Natasha, a purchasable hero unit, portraying the Soviet sniper/commando in various cutscenes.
In September 2009, Carano landed the leading role in the spy thriller movie Haywire, directed by Steven Soderbergh. Christy Lemire of The Associated Press stated: "[Carano's] dialogue delivery may seem a bit stiff — and she has acknowledged that Soderbergh made some tweaks to her voice in post-production — but she has tremendous presence: an intriguing mix of muscular power and eye-catching femininity".
In February 2012, Carano was cast in In the Blood, an action thriller being directed by John Stockwell (Into the Blue, Blue Crush). The film has been described as being in the vein of Taken, In the Blood is set in motion when a husband disappears while vacationing in the Caribbean with his wife, played by Carano. The grieving wife passionately and recklessly pursues the men whom she believes kidnapped and killed him. Stockwell stated, "This role will showcase not only Gina’s fighting skills, but also her acting abilities as her character struggles to reign in her violent past".
In April 2012, Carano entered negotiations to join the cast of Fast & Furious 6. Carano will play a member of Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Special Agent Luke Hobbs' (Dwayne Johnson) team.
Accolades
She was profiled in a feature story for the ESPN series E:60. She was voted "Hottest Woman In America" by Big Biz Magazine in the Spring 2008 issue. On May 13, 2008, "Gina Carano" was the fastest-rising search on Google and third most searched person on Yahoo!.
She was ranked as #5 on the "Top Ten Influential Women of 2008" list on Yahoo!
In May 2009, it was announced that Carano was ranked #16 in Maxim's Hot 100 list.
In April 2012 Carano became the first recipient of the Chick Norris (Best Female Action Star) Award, given by ActionFest to the female action star of the year.
She is one of the cover athletes along with Serena Williams[for the October 19, 2009 edition of ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue. Carano and Williams were two of the athletes featured in a book by Dana Rasmussen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Carano
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