Gina Carano: From fat woman and bullying victim to MMA fighter and Hollywood star

Today, Gina Carano (Gina Carano) is known as the star of the Marvel universe, the movie "Fast and Furious" and the TV series "Mandalorian", and also as a popular model. But some fifteen years ago, only fans of women's mixed martial arts (MMA) heard about it. Gina became a champion in 2006, when she won the first ever women's fight and immediately became the face of this tough sport. But the beauty finished her sports career just three years later — in 2009, she made her choice in favor of cinema.

Gina Carano was born in Dallas, Texas, USA, on April 16, 1982. The girl grew up in a sports family — her father was a professional player for the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League. Gina had played basketball, volleyball, and softball during her high school years, but she wasn't particularly good at sports. And the girl was different from her classmates with a heavy build, because of which she constantly endured ridicule.

Her peers were merciless towards Gina and teased her as a "Bully". But the girl was not angry at the whole world and endured bullying with fortitude. Carano dreamed of a career as a psychologist and therefore looked at her abusers from the point of view of this science. She was convinced that a person is not what they say about him, but what he is inside, in the soul.

Since childhood, Gina had seen her older sister suffer from chronic depression, and understood how ephemeral her childhood problems were. She genuinely wanted to help her cope with her illness, and so ... dropped out of the psychology department when she was in her third year at the University of Nevada. Carano sacrificed her future career by moving in with her sister to help her cope with another crisis.

Around this difficult period of her life, the girl decided to get rid of the extra pounds and came to the gym. But instead of fitness, Gina became interested in muay Thai, which her boyfriend was seriously engaged in. After a year of training, the girl was noticed by Master Toddy-a four-time world champion in kickboxing and became her mentor.

Toddy did not spare Gina — he constantly called her a fat woman, motivating her to lose weight as quickly as possible. Under the guidance of Master Toddy, Carano began to make progress — she turned out to have a very strong natural stroke, which only needed cutting. In Muay Thai, Gina held 14 duels, of which she won 12.

But soon Carano realized that if you make sports the main profession, then kickboxing is not good. This type of martial arts has already lost its former popularity and paid very little for professional fights. Toddy perfectly understood his ward, so he brought her together with familiar MMA promoters who offered Gina to participate in that very historic fight in 2006.

The fight took place on June 10, 2006 and lasted only 38 seconds. It ended with Carano knocking out her rival, fellow countryman Letitia Pestova. Just three months later, Gina was eliminated at the World Pro Fighting Championships by another American athlete, Rosie Sexton, and again by a hard knockout.

"Naked" weigh-in before Kelly Kobold fight

This was followed by a series of brilliant victories that turned Gina Carano into a legend. The girl-fighter also knew how to shock the audience — during the weigh-in in 2008, before the fight with Kelly Kobold, it turned out that Gina weighs 1.3 kg more than necessary. Without hesitation. the athlete takes off all her clothes and weighs herself naked, covering her nakedness only with a towel. Carano's action further fueled interest in the fight, which, by the way, she won by decision of the judges.

Gina Carano and Chris " Cyborg»

The first crushing defeat in her career Carano suffered in 2009 from the master of Brazilian jiu-jitsu Christian Justinu, nicknamed Cyborg. This failure was one of the key reasons for the girl's departure from MMA to the cinema and modeling business. By the way, Madame Cyborg was later caught using steroids, stripped of all titles and disqualified. Gina reacted to this news calmly and even showed generosity, commenting on the event as follows:

It was 2012, and Carano had already become a star of Maxim and Big Biz Magazine, as well as a performer of several roles in films. For MMA, she cooled down and did not succumb to the temptation, even when she was offered a million dollars for a single professional fight.

In the cinema, Gina first got episodic roles of strong women, and a full-fledged debut with a serious role took place in 2011. Carano played Mallory Kane in the film "Knockout", which, although it did not become a sensation, but gave the actress the opportunity to be nominated for" Best Actress in an action film " during the Critics Choice Awards-2013. She did not receive the award in the end, but was noticed by the producers.

First, the actress played in the sixth part of "Fast and Furious", and then in the comedy thriller based on the Marvel comics "Deadpool". Then there was "Scorched Earth", the TV series "Star Wars: Mandalorian" and other high-profile projects. Gina Carano quickly became her own in the circle of famous action stars — her partners on the set were Jean-Claude Van Damme, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas and Bruce Willis.

In interviews, Gina often says that she still can't believe that she got to the very top of the Hollywood Olympus — she never had patrons, and cool roles came to her literally by themselves. With journalists, the beautiful Carano communicates very willingly and with pleasure talks about her sports and acting career.

But once you start talking about your personal life, Gina immediately changes and becomes laconic. It is known that recently the athlete and actress had affairs with Keith Cope and Henry Cavill, which quickly and without scandals ended in nothing. Once the girl still let it slip — she complained about the failures on the personal front, and then added:

Most likely, this, just confused those very men. Agree, it is not easy to be near a beauty, a champion and a movie star who has a killer punch and no less striking charm.