Chael Sonnen believes the announced Gina Carano vs Ronda Rousey matchup on Netflix is being framed around the wrong headline, arguing that the real news is Jake Paul stepping into the MMA business with the streaming giant.
Sonnen: “Jake Paul is in the MMA business”
In a recent video on his channel, Sonnen opened by reacting to reports that Rousey vs Carano will take place in mixed martial arts under the Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) banner, in partnership with Netflix. He admitted he initially assumed the two legends might be meeting in a grappling or kickboxing bout, noting prior talk of Rousey doing a boxing match, including Katie Taylor’s name being floated, which made the MMA ruleset a surprise. Sonnen said he first thought the UFC might be involved before realizing “they’re not,” and that MVP had teamed with Netflix instead. For Sonnen, that shifted the focus: “You guys have missed the story… The story is that Jake Paul is in the MMA business.”
Sonnen laid out why he views this as a potential inflection point rather than just a nostalgia booking. He highlighted that Paul already has ties to MMA names, mentioning Anderson Silva and Tyron Woodley, who have boxed him but “would like to do MMA,” and raised questions about whether Paul will sign athletes, build a roster, or stage a one‑night event.
This led him to contrast a sustainable MMA promotion with what he calls the “big fight business,” where boxing often builds around a handful of major events each year without a consistent calendar. In his words, an MMA promotion that “makes it” is something you can reproduce on another night, while boxing’s model is “very unsustainable” when events are rare and dependent on a single attraction.
Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano
Sonnen argued that Rousey vs Carano is actually tailor‑made for a one‑off “big fight” rather than an ongoing promotion that needs continuation and rematches. He pointed out that from a promoter’s perspective, “you’re not going to get Ronda back,” so you cannot rely on her to carry future dates or storylines in the way Vince McMahon would treat a long‑term wrestling angle. In a one‑night setting, however, he said MVP and Netflix can “play a game of checkers and do real well,” since they are not trying to sell tickets to the next venue or build a division around the result.
Sonnen even acknowledged critics who mock the matchup as “the girl that was never in the UFC against the girl that got woke up the last time she was in the UFC,” and countered that if the goal is big fights, competitive prime‑vs‑prime matchmaking is not the central metric.
Sonnen also tied this move to the huge attention around Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson on Netflix, saying that bout “broke the internet” to the point where streaming issues forced him to watch on a tablet, which he said solved the problem. That kind of audience scale, in his view, shows why Paul plus Netflix could be a “very formidable opponent” if they commit to MMA rather than staying in occasional spectacle mode.
He warned there is still “tremendous” risk if the card is built in classic boxing fashion around a single main event, because a withdrawal would leave the entire show exposed. Still, he called Rousey and Carano “fairly reliable” and circled back to his thesis: “Roner versus Corano, all right. Jake Paul putting on MMA. That’s the headline.”
