Kaitlin Young comes to the cage to the first to Avenged Sevenfold, followed by Gina Carano. Real tough matchup for Gina against a talented and tough Muay Thai specialist. Young hearing some boos. Carano has a great ‘game face’–wondering if her many non-fighting responsibilities have caused a problem in her preparation for this fight. Young looks *real* tough. Here we go…

ROUND 1:

Fighters touch gloves in the middle. Carano gets off a middle kick which Young parries. Fighters exchange strikes and Gina takes Young down. She tries to pass guard–the clinch for a minute and then they’re back to their feet. Carano looks much stronger, which could be due to her American Gladiator training. Young has Gina against the cage now. Now Young on the ground trying to pass Gina’s guard. Gina protecting herself well and may be trying for a triangle choke or some other submission. Crowd starts a loud chant of ‘We Want Shayna’. Just kidding about that. Fighters back to their feet, Young misses with some kicks. Carano looks pretty sharp for someone who’s admitted she hasn’t been able to dedicate herself to training like she should. Good, competitive first round–Carano controlled the tempo and did the most damage so she gets it 10-9

ROUND 2:

Gina defended well in the first round. Anyway, round 2 starts with a standup exchange. No solid blows yet. Kaitlin lands a couple of knees. Fighters exchanging blows now, crowd starting a ‘Gina’ chant. Young having trouble finding the range with her kicks. Fighters exchanging nice combinations now, Gina lets her hands go and appears to hurt Young somewhat though she recovers quickly by clinching up. Young is definitely tough as most fighters male or female would have gone down. Gina is gassed but she’s letting her hands go and scoring well with her punches. Young goes down with :30 seconds left and Gina takes her back looking for the rear naked choke. She’s got the hooks in but she can’t get the arms placed properly . She has it at least partially now, but the round ends and she looks ragged. She may not be able to continue….

ROUND 3:

Katilin’s face looks awful with an apparent broken nose and tons of welts. Its over–not sure if the Young’s corner conceeded or the doctor stopped it. We’ll wait for the announcement but Carano wins. She didn’t have her “A” game but her superior power made the difference. This is good because we want her to be undefeated when our girl Shayna Baszler fights her. Still haven’t seen anything about Gina’s submission defense that is particularly impressive which could be a big problem against ‘The Queen of Spades’. Ranallo mentions Baszler, though he makes the mistake of naming her 2nd after Tara LaRosa. He no doubt regrets the error. The doctor stopped the fight at the end of the 2nd round–it might not have been stopped under normal circumstances but the last thing that CBS or EliteXC wants is to see Carano beat Young into a bloody pulp.

GINA CARANO WINS BY TKO (DOCTOR STOPPAGE)

Carano interviewed, she comes off real well since she’s had plenty of experience dealing with the media. She’s giving props to her corner people–hopefully they’ll let Shayna introduce Josh Barnett after she beats Carano. Kimbo being interviewed backstage–yeah, he’s a *slightly* intimidating looking dude. He’s talking about the distinction between his non-fighting persona Kevin Ferguson and his ‘alter ego’ Kimbo Slice. Kimbo’s low key in his interview but comes off well. Ruthless Robbie Lawler, who’s something of an enigmatic fighter, is up next against Scott Smith.