Memo to Gina Carano: Forget the Haters, Greatness Awaits You

After scoring a TKO in a historic fight with the very talented Kaitlin Young last night, Gina Carano seemed somewhat unenthused when she was being interviewed by CBS reporter Gus Johnson.

Gary Shaw’s pretty face of Women’s MMA looked somewhat unhappy. It seemed like even though she won, her conscious was telling her that she had lost.

Maybe even more historic than the inception of female MMA on national television, was that the end of the match marked the first time when looking at Gina Carano was actually saddening.

Critics have been able to do the unthinkable—their weighty words have managed to play mind games with a former psychology major.

With much pre-fight talk concerning her inability to make weight, Carano professed that she needed to get back in the gym and vowed to become an even better fighter.

So here’s an instance where the adage about actions speaking louder than words had dual meaning. Her words post-fight did not do well to capture the beauty or excitement that the fight emulated.

On the other end, Carano’s actions in the past deem her words irrelevant and have her skeptics waiting for future results. She seems afraid of greatness—too scared to take the proper steps to reach her potential.

Maybe she doesn’t realize that her fighting at her peak would be a scary proposition not for her, but for her opponents to handle.

With new opportunities coming to her left and right, it is Carano's task to take the proper road to greatness. This does not necessarily mean stepping away from the gladiator arena, or the spotlight.

However, a real life red alert must be sent to warn Carano that putting too much on her plate may distract her from achieving the goals most important to her. More importantly, she must block out all the criticism, and focus on herself alone.

Being put on a pedestal inevitably means that critics, haters, and many others  will continue to discredit her every chance they get. But that's where greatness comes into play, because if she learns how to keep in balance her fame and frame, Carano's significance to the sport's world will be measured on a different scale all together. Her looks and ability may have the ability to transform how some look at female athletes in general.

In any event, this does not take away from her uncanny ability to perform on the big stage. Both Kaitlin Young and Gina Carano should be proud of what they accomplished Saturday night—their epic battle put a lot of critics of women’s MMA to shame.