Carano Misses Weight

by Robert Sargent

After desperate struggles to make the 140-pound limit in each of her last two fights, Gina Carano officially failed to make weight for her EliteXC bout tomorrow, weighing in at 144½ pounds. Her fight with Kaitlin Young is still on.

Young had the option to decline the fight and walk away with her "show" purse, but opted to fight on as planned, and will receive 12.5% of Carano's fight purse as a penalty.

Carano struggled badly to make weight in her EliteXC debut against Julie Kedzie in February of 2007, and technically missed weight in her bout with Tonya Evinger last September, weighing in at 141¼ pounds, one-quarter of a pound over the limit.

This marks the first time that she has been officially penalised for missing weight, with the very real possibility of the fight being cancelled. It comes after Carano's repeated assertions throughout the last two weeks that she would make weight and that "none of her fights had been cancelled" for missing weight.

In Carano's defence, her ridiculous schedule filming American Gladiators, where she was required to weigh over 160 pounds at times, is undoubtedly a large contributor in her failure to make the 140-pound limit for this fight, but the responsibility still falls on Carano for undertaking the American Gladiators project in the first place.

Additionally, with her history of struggles in weight cutting, the reality of the situation is that she is much better suited for a higher weight class. The problem, however, is that very few female fighters compete above the 135-pound level, and EliteXC has already created a custom division - the 140-pound division - for Carano, to make cutting the weight easier.

What remains to be seen now is whether this will have a significant impact on Carano's performance tomorrow night. Due to American Gladiators wrapping up filming just three weeks ago, Carano's training camp for this fight has been abbreviated, and this will only further hamper her psyche coming into the fight.

Whatever the case may be, we will see how she handles the adversity tomorrow evening. "EliteXC: Primetime" airs live on most CBS affiliates at 9:00 P.M. Eastern, 6:00 P.M. Pacific.