EliteXC lowballing female fighter Gina Carano

Photo courtesy of proelite.com

Earlier today, I was reading the MMA Section on Yahoo! Sports and came across an article about Gina Carano (pictured above), who is not only the hottest woman on the planet but also the top female star of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

In the article, Yahoo! Sports Kevin Iole was responding to a fan-letter that was upset with his singling-out of Carano for having trouble making an un-reachable weight of 140-pounds for her most recent bout on "EliteXC Heat," which is hard for Carano due to her having to film NBC's American Gladiators as "Crush" and NBC wanting her to be near 160-pounds for the tapings.

Of course the simple solution would be for EliteXC to make the women's division 145-pounds instead of 140 since "Cyborg" Santos, who will be Carano's next opponent, fought at 148-pounds on the same show in an undercard bout, but that's another story for another time.

Anyway, in Iole's response, he mentioned that Carano, who is the company's top-draw now that Kimbo Slice was exposed for the fraud he truly is by Seth Petruzelli at "Heat," only made $25,000 for her fight against Kelly Kobold, which ratings show was the most-watched fight of the night.

Even more eye-opening is the fact that Carano made less than Slice ($500,000), Andrei Arlovski ($500,000), Roy Nelson ($80,000), Petruzelli ($50,000), Jake Shields ($50,000), Murilo Rua ($35,000) and Benji Radach ($30,000). In addition, there are unconfirmed reports that Arlovski received a $1 million bonus that raised his overall pay to $1.5 million.

How can anyone in that company justify paying Slice 20-times more than Carano when Carano not only won, but was the reason people tuned in to see the event in the first place? The ratings showed an increase in viewership for her fight and a huge decline when the fight was over. Also, Carano dominated her fight and won by unamous decesion, unlike Slice who not only lost in 14-seconds but lost to a LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT whom he had a 30-pound weight advantage.

This is a total lack of respect shown by EliteXC to Carano, who has done more for the company than Slice and is a prime example, along with the controversy that EliteXC officials told Petruzelli to keep the fight with Slice standing, of why the company is $60 million in the hole and may lose its contract with CBS.

Lastly, should EliteXC survive long enough for the fans to get Cyborg vs. Carano, I agree with Iole that no matter what is left on Carano's contract, EliteXC should rip it up and give her a new one that pays her what she's worth. If not, I'm sure Dana White and the UFC would love to start a women's division and have Carano as the star since that is where the "Big Boys" fight and soon, could be where the "Big Girls" fight.