Crossover Star of Next Year: MMA’s Gina Carano

We?ve made no secret in these parts that we are extreme fans of MMA?s Gina Carano. She has the two things we look for in any woman: (a) being extremely attractive; and (b) having the ability to kick the shit out of us. But while MMA has been building a bigger and bigger audience over the last few years, it still has yet to reach that threshold of popular consciousness where everyone knows who Carano is. (I call it The Mom Test: If my mom knows about it, everyone else does. And she thinks MMA is some new disease.)

That?s all about to change next year now that director extraordinaire Steven Soderbergh has tapped (is that the right word?) Carano to star in his new martial arts film ?Knockout?. Some plot information:

Scripted by Lem Dobbs, ?Knockout? casts Carano as a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who is given a second chance to use her skills for constructive purposes. The film is a closer cousin to ?La Femme Nikita? and ?Kill Bill? than ?Million Dollar Baby,? in that it doesn’t take place in the fighting ring. Soderbergh considers the film as a flat-out actioner in the James Bond mold and will shoot in locations around the world that include Ireland, Turkey and the U.S.

Whatever. This was all just an excuse for a mini-gallery of Carano: