Gina Carano has recently appeared partially nude for a special ‘body’ issue of ESPN magazine, and has also been cast to star in a new movie by Steven Soderbergh, but what many people are wondering is when she might return to her ‘day job’ – mixed martial arts competition.

In a new interview on the mma hour radio show, Scott Coker, the president of Strikeforce, was asked when we might expect to see popular womens MMA fighter Gina Carano back in action.

“I think they are going to start shooting (the Soderbergh movie)  in January from what I hear,” he says.  “It was pretty clear that we wouldn’t see her until probably (the) 2nd quarter of next year…and probably late 2nd quarter, probably towards the summer time.  That’s when we’re expecting her back.”

How much dialogue there has been behind the scenes between the two is unknown, but despite his prediction of a summer return to action, Cocker must be somewhat concerned that she may not return.  He has already had a bad experience with Hollywood when his former middleweight champion Cung Le started to get movie roles, which delayed his fight career, and eventually led to him vacating his belt in order to become a full-tim actor.

Despite her loss to Cyborg Santos in August, Gina Carano is still very much in demand  and could essentially take her pick of which career path she wishes to take at this stage.  Whether she still has a desire to compete will perhaps be a question that would be answered definitely until sometime next year.

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Update (31st January 2010):  See the latest on Gina’s acting debut here