Ronda Rousey knew that Dana White and the UFC would be excited to promote her bout with Gina Carano. She could hear it in his stutters in the voice memo(s) he left for her. Of course, the 56-year-old White would want two of the biggest names ever to enter the octagon to fight each other for the first time. Who wouldn’t?
But as we now know, the MMA bout headlined by two female superstars will not be happening underneath White, UFC, and Paramount+’s umbrella. Instead, Netflix announced earlier this week that it will air the fight on Saturday, May 16, at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles under Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions.
The streaming giant made a splash in combat sports by landing two of the most influential athletes in building women’s mixed martial arts as a sport. Both have gone on to star outside the sport in movies and television shows, and will likely register very high viewership on the streaming service.
Carano last fought in 2009, when she was defeated by Cris Cyborg, putting an end to her undefeated streak in various MMA promotions. She went on to become a mainstream movie star before her career was derailed after a series of controversial social media posts. As for Rousey, she hadn’t competed in an MMA bout since 2016 when she lost to Amanda Nunes at UFC 207. After beginning her career with 12 straight victories in dominant fashion, Rousey lost her last two fights before entering a career in professional wrestling with WWE.
As she gears up for her MMA comeback, the 39-year-old Ronda Rousey opened up on The Jim Rome Show this week about what she called a “saga,” explaining how a deal with Dana White fell apart because Gina Carano needed more time, which ended up pushing the fight into 2026. By then, the UFC was moving away from its ESPN+ PPV platform, meaning the bout would have to air under the new Paramount+ deal.
“Originally, I wanted to do it for New Year’s, and I went to [White], and I’m like, ‘Dude, you always say I’m the best fighter you’ve ever worked with, like reward me for it. Don’t punish me for being easy to work with. Give me the best deal you ever gave anybody.’ And he goes, ‘Alright, I’m gonna go back and get you the best deal I ever had.’ He came back, and he literally brought me a deal where I would make more per pay-per-view buy than anybody in history,” Rousey told Rome. “Like, if I hit my historical numbers — which I know we would’ve been able to exceed — I would’ve made as much as I did in my entire career.”
But pushing the fight into 2026 — presumably to give both fighters more training time — made the economics of the UFC offer far less appealing under the promotion’s new pay model.
“It happened to go to the other side of when the ESPN deal and the pay-per-view model would be ending, and they would be going to streaming,” Rousey explained. “They’re know a publicly traded company… And they didn’t want to set a precedent of giving me the guaranteed money that I deserve, because once I raise that tide, it lifts all the boats. They just made a $7.7 billion deal at Paramount, and so it’s in their best interests, actually, not to put on the best fights possible, but to spend as little money as possible so they can keep it.”
The UFC’s partnership with ESPN ended in December 2025 after seven years and 294 live events together. The promotion then moved to Paramount+ in January 2026 under an 11-year, $7.7 billion deal that marked the end of UFC’s pay-per-view model. Under the old ESPN model, pay-per-view events cost $79.99 per show, in addition to the cost of an ESPN+ subscription. Under the new Paramount deal, subscribers get access to all UFC events at no additional charge beyond the monthly Paramount+ fee.
UFC 324 debuted on Paramount+ on January 24, 2026, averaging 4.96 million viewers and peaking at 5.93 million, the second most-watched live event in Paramount+ history. The debut reportedly added one million new subscribers to the streamer, nearly double the 500,000 signups UFC’s ESPN+ debut generated in 2019.
“Dana’s now legally obligated to maximize shareholder value; it’s not just about proving the concept of fighting and putting the best fights possible and proving that this is a sport to be taken seriously,” Rousey continued. “I think now that they’ve sold the company, it’s kind of out of Dana’s hand, unfortunately, and now it’s falling onto [chief business officer] Hunter Campbell and UFC Corp., where they don’t care about putting on the best fights possible; they care about putting on the most cost-effective fights possible.”
The math no longer worked for Rousey. Paying her what she wanted would set a precedent the UFC couldn’t afford across the rest of its roster for the duration of the Paramount deal.
“And so, I decided to look elsewhere,” she said.
From there, Rousey found a willing partner in Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions and Netflix. Paul has worked with Netflix before on influencer fights against Mike Tyson and Anthony Joshua. The Tyson fight in November 2024 — although ridiculed for its actual existence as a sporting event — set incredible viewership highs despite widespread streaming issues.
Rousey-Carano is being promoted under the same banner. The fight will take place inside a hexagon instead of an octagon and consist of five 5-minute rounds, sanctioned under the Unified Rules of MMA.
It’s a dream matchup, but it’s happening a combined 26 years after either fighter last competed in a professional MMA bout. But given the star power of both fighters and Netflix’s proven ability to draw massive audiences for combat sports spectacles, the fight will almost certainly generate huge viewership numbers regardless of the competitive quality.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.