Tag Archives: Gina Carano

Since Paul Bishop make it official on his blog earlier this week, I thought it was more than time to make it official right here on SPF. My next project will break away from my own Metahuman Press and move in to the cage. I start work this weekend on my next novel: Fight Card MMA: Rosie the Ripper.

I came to this project after Paul posted a mockup of a Fight Card cover by artist Keith Birdsong that didn’t exist and wasn’t planned. But Paul was so taken by the cover featuring a female MMA fighter, he put it up anyway. I said right in the comments to that post that I would love to write Rosie. And after a few weeks of discussions and a proposal by yours truly, I was ready to go. And now that I have finished a few other commitments, Rosie is next on my docket.

So why am I, a guy known for pulp heroes and super powered fiction, writing a novel that features neither?

I have been a fan of the sport of mixed martial arts for a few years now, but I probably have the most unique road in to the sport: a road that I hope makes me the perfect person to write a project about a female MMA fighter. You see, I came in to mixed martial arts through a strange patch, namely American Gladiators.

I loved the original show and could not wait for the Hulk Hogan-hosted version of the show when it debuted on NBC. It was a bit less cheesy, but every bit as athletic as the original show, but one competitor stood out above the others, mostly because she was so amazing at crushing the guests. On the show, her name was Crush.

Everywhere else she was simply Gina Carano, the biggest name in women’s MMA.

When I found out Gina was an MMA fighter on the side and that Elite XC, her MMA employer at the time, was making its network television debut, I had to watch. I was far from disappointed. Modern MMA had went from the no holds barred sick fights of early UFC to a beautiful controlled combination of boxing, kickboxing and submission wrestling. In other words, it took so much of what I liked in professional wrestling and made it real.

To this day, I still miss Elite XC, a company that I will probably think to my dying day had the best production values and commentators in MMA, but I have followed MMA ever since. My interest has always leaned towards the female fighters, whether it be Carano, Kris Cyborg or current darling, Ronda Rousey. And in these days leading in to Rousey’s main event battle with Liz Carmouche, the first ever female fight to not only headline a UFC show but to even be featured on a UFC event, it seems the perfect time to step in to the ring with Rosie and Fight Card MMA.

I could not be more proud to work on this project. Hopefully I can do Rosie and the Fight Card line proud. I will end this post with the first of the three UFC Primetime shows that lead in to the upcoming Rousey/Carmouche bout. If anyone ever wonders if or why there should be women’s MMA, I think this answers that question.