Strong women: October 2010

Gina Carano

Gina Joy Carano (born April 16, 1982) is an American mixed martial arts fighter, model and actress. Carano appeared as the Gladiator "Crush" on American Gladiators. She has been referred to as the "Face of Women's MMA."

Carano was formerly the #3-ranked 145-pound female fighter in the world according to the Unified Women's MMA Rankings.

Carano starred in the cult film Ring Girls. Based on true events, Ring Girls is a fast-paced story about five American women from Las Vegas who take on the ultimate challenge of fighting the best female Muay Thai fighters in the world.

Along with Lisa King, Carano served as a mentor to aspiring female fighters in the Oxygen reality series Fight Girls. She appeared as "Crush" on the NBC show American Gladiators, in which she also starred in the workout video of the show along with Monica Carlson (Jet), Jennifer Widerstrom (Phoenix), Michael O'Hearn (Titan), Tanoai Reed (Toa) and Don "Hollywood" Yates (Wolf). The DVD was released in December 16, 2008. She is also featured in the Michael Jai White film Blood and Bone.

She was profiled in a feature story for the ESPN series E:60, and was voted "Hottest Woman In America" by Big Biz Magazine in the Spring 2008 issue. On May 13, 2008, "Gina Carano" was the fastest-rising search on Google and third most searched person on Yahoo!. She has also appeared in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 as Natasha, a purchasable hero unit, portraying the Soviet sniper/commando in various cutscenes.

She was ranked as #5 on the "Top Ten Influential Women of 2008" list on Yahoo!

In May 2009, it was announced that Carano was ranked #16 in Maxim's Hot 100 list.

On September 6, 2009, she was reported as playing the leading role in a new spy thriller movie "Haywire" directed by Steven Soderbergh.

She is one of the cover athletes for the October 19, 2009 edition of ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue.

statics
Born : April 16, 1982 (1982-04-16)
Dallas County, Texas, United States
Other names : Conviction, Crush
Nationality : American
Height :5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
Weight : 143 lb (65 kg; 10.2 st)
Style : Boxing, Muay Thai
Fighting out of : Las Vegas, Nevada
Team : Xtreme Couture

Paula Patton

Paula Maxine Thicke (née Patton; born December 5, 1975) is an American actress. She is mostly known for her appearances in the films Idlewild (2005), Déjà Vu (2006) , Mirrors (2008) , Precious (2009) ,"Just Wright".

Patton's first acting role was in 2005's Hitch,which starred Will Smith and Eva Mendes. She followed that with a small part in the drama London and appeared alongside OutKast members Andre Benjamin and Big Boi in Idlewild.

Patton was also the leading lady in the 2006 film Déjà Vu, a thriller starring Denzel Washington and Val Kilmer and played television reporter Kate Madison in 2008's Swing Vote. She appeared in the film Mirrors, alongside Kiefer Sutherland, in 2008. She also appeared in her husband Robin Thicke's "Lost Without You" video.

In Precious, a film based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Patton plays Blu Rain, a teacher at an alternative high school in New York. There she encounters and mentors the main character Precious.

In fall 2010, Patton was annouced as succeeding Sharon Stone as the new full-time assistant district attorney on the NBC legal drama, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. However, Patton landed the lead female role in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and thus her role on SVU was reduced to one episode. She was replaced by Melissa Sagemiller.