Gina Carano's return bout to come against Sarah D'Alelio at Strikeforce "Overeem vs. Werdum" in June

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Gina Carano's return to MMA is all but official, as MMAFighting.com reports that a rumored bout with Sarah D'Alelio is nearly finalized, and could be announced by Strikeforce as early as next week.

Carano will have been away from the sport for nearly two full years by the time she steps into the cage on June 18, having taken a role in Steven Soderbergh's upcoming film "Haywire."

The last time she was in action, she was defeated by Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos in their historic main event fight in August of 2009. That fight on Showtime was the first time two women had ever headlined a major MMA event.

D'Alelio is a 4-1 professional out of Washington. Of her four career wins, three have come by submission. She's coming off her first career loss, a decision loss to Julie Kedzie in December.

Strikeforce's June 18 show is headlined by the Heavyweight World Grand Prix fight between Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum, and takes place from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.

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Penick's Analysis: This is a fight set up for Carano to have the best chance at a successful return. That's not a knock on D'Alelio, but she's not the type of fighter that would give Carano a ton of trouble. Carano's striking has historically been her strong suit, and she's also typically been larger than her opponents. Those were two problems she ran into with Cyborg, but even after two years off this is a fight that she is supposed to win. Still, it's a good thing for women's MMA to have her back to bring more attention to the sport, and everyone will just have to hope she'll be able to be around more often then once every two years with her acting career.

[Gina Carano art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/Affliction2/article_9267.shtml

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