LOS ANGELES (AP) — The idea of returning to any professional sport after a break of nearly 17 years seems preposterous.Doing it in a sport as dangerous as mixed martial arts? Gina Carano realizes it seems like something that could — maybe should — only happen in the movies.Carano is doing it anyway Saturday night when she fights Ronda Rousey in the main event of Netflix’s first MMA show. Their bout could be the most-watched combat sports event of the year, and it puts the 44-year-old Carano back under the competitive spotlight she left in 2009, when she was 27.The trailblazing fighter built and lost a high-profile acting career in the lengthy interim, but an offer from Rousey and a revelatory return to MMA training have altered her perspective on what’s possible and what’s important in life.“I think this fight is happening right when it should,” Carano said this week after she was cheered at a promotional public workout on famed Venice Beach. “Right now, I’m in such a solid place. I had to go through life in order to get here, and maybe other people get there a little bit younger. But for me, I’m a little bit of a late maturer. It happened for me now, and I’m so happy.”
Carano actually knows plenty about Hollywood — and about Hollywood endings, too.
