Gina Joy Carano (born April 16, 1982 in Dallas County, Texas, USA ) is an American a former mixed martial arts fighter, actress, television personality and fitness model.
Carano appeared as Crush, a Gladiator on American Gladiators. She has been referred to as the "Face of Women's MMA". According to the Unified Women's MMA Rankings Carano was formerly the third best 145 lb (66 kg) female fighter in the world.
Carano started her sport career from Muay Thai. After achieving a Muay Thai record of 12–1–1, she received an offer from Jamie Levine to participate in the first-ever sanctioned female MMA bout in Nevada with World Extreme Fighting to fight Leiticia Pestova. She was invited to the World Pro Fighting show in Las Vegas to fight Rosi Sexton. Carano won the fight by knocking out Sexton late in the second round.
Gina 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 also ranked as No.5 on the "Top Ten Influential Women of 2008" list on Yahoo!
In May 2009, it was announced that Carano was ranked No.16 in Maxim's Hot 100 list. 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.
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.
For more information about Gina Carano's career visit wikipedia.org
