Dana White says Carano-Rousey 'Will probably be early December,' Carano deal close

The UFC's pursuit of Gina Carano is beginning to turn into a Matt Damon-on-Jimmy Kimmel situation, with the payoff getting pushed a little further into the future time and again.

However, a deal is close, according to UFC president Dana White, close enough that he's already willing to put an approximate date on the eventual showdown between undefeated UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey and the 7-1 Carano.

“[The fight] won’t be the end of the year but it will probably be early December,” White said Friday.

White also shot down any suggestion that negotiations over financials were ever anything but above board, saying "If you are a needle-mover and you do something, you're getting paid."

Carano hasn't fought since a loss to Cyborg Justino in August of 2009 - and that's an opponent some seem to prefer for Rousey as a super-fight - but White shot down any suggestion here getting an immediate title shot was unfair.

"It’s a fight that Ronda Rousey wants," he said. "And Ronda has been very good to us, so if that’s a fight that she wants I am going to try and get it done. Ronda has done everything we asked her to do. This is like a GSP situation when GSP asked us for Diaz. How would I say no to GSP? Ronda wants this fight this bad."

With Holly Holm now in the fold with the promotion and Carano on tap, what appeared to be a cleaned-out women's division suddenly has enough intrigue to get us to 2015.