Gina Carano is women's MMA in North America right now. She has the looks, the skills, and the ability to make people want to watch her fight. She is currently in negotiations with the Strikeforce promotion in regards to a new contract since they purchased her old contract from EliteXC. Strikeforce founder Scott Coker was confident that they would have Carano onboard, yet it's still not a done deal at the moment. Carano currently has a great deal of leverage in regards to negotiations due to the qualities mentioned above. Honestly, I have no idea what she's asking for, but to be sure it's more than the 25K she was making with EliteXC. However, I'm not quite sold on her making the six figures that some pundits think she's worth. Here's why:
- There's no established women's division in MMA.
- There's only one 'money' fight for Carano right now
- How could you pay Carano more than you pay some of your champions?
Number's 1 and 2 kind of go hand in hand in that you would be paying a great deal of money to a fighter with no set division to fight in. Also, what would be next after the Cyborg Santos fight? What if Santos loses her April 11th fight against Hitomi Akano? What if Carano lost to Santos? Will Carano only fight on the Strikeforce CBS shows to take advantage of her ability to draw viewers? Also, how could you pay a fighter like Carano more than you would pay some of your champions? Zuffa ran into a similar problem when they signed Brock Lesnar, but it was pretty much a given that he would help them draw PPV buys. Strikeforce doesn't even have PPV as an option right now, so would the viewers Carano garned ratings wise justify paying her a large sum of money?
Build with me.
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