San Diego, CA — Be it with Bellator, the PFL, or anywhere else, Bellator 300 winner and flyweight champ Liz Carmouche is simply happy to be fighting — and hopeful that she might get the opportunity to win a title in a second weight class.
Carmouche was the first female fighter in history to set foot in the UFC octagon back in 2013 (technically, she walked out prior to Ronda Rousey); since her arrival in Bellator MMA in 2020, she’s won seven straight fights, defending her title three times.
“I’ve been in this game so long and been a part of so many purchases and changes, I’m just grateful that I’m still living this life and enjoying every moment,” Carmouche (20-7) said following her latest title win, apparently unphased by talk of the PFL purchasing Bellator MMA.
“If we’re under a new banner and it happens to be PFL and it happens to be the buyout, great. My biggest hope is that they open up a 135 division. Whether that’s here in Bellator or another organization, that’s my dream, is to be able to hold a belt in the 135 division in addition to 125.”
Carmouche came up short against Rousey in 2013 for the UFC women’s bantamweight title, and eventually made the move down to flyweight. It has been at 125lbs where she’s had her greatest success, defending her belt against friend and former training partner Ilima-Lei Macfarlane on Saturday. She outlined her game plan for the fight, saying that “I knew ultimately where she wanted to be was on the ground, so I knew that I had to be smart on not over-committing on strikes, not over-committing on kicks, even if I saw— I saw openings for kicks to the head, opening for kicks to the body, but I knew that’s what she was hoping for, was just to be able to fall on a kick and take it to the ground.”
While Carmouche is more than conformable on the ground, “I wanted to play to my strengths, and I knew that I could finish it on the feet, or look for an opportunity to just finish her with an open strike somewhere. I was just trying to play it smart, and as soon as that veil was fallen and the fight was done, then I could look at her as the friend that she is and somebody I care about.”
It should be noted that Carmouche and Ilima-Lei were more than just training partners; to an extent, Macfarlane, the inaugural Bellator MMA women’s flyweight champ, was her protegee.
Asked about seeing Macfarlane get her start, “I got to see her start off having to learn what her fighting stance was, because she’d wrestled, but it’s not the same as her fighting stance,” recalled Carmouche. “And then how quickly she adapted and committed herself to the idea that this was going to be a professional full time. And how she changed her whole lifestyle to do that.”
Carmouche also gave her friend credit for launching the women’s flyweight division in Bellator. Carmouche noted she was “watching as she built up the 125 division. Bellator’s 125 division was non-existent before Ilima. She built it up, she did everything great by it, and showcased what it meant to be a champion and treated fighters with so much respect no matter what happened.”
Asked about the difference between her UFC run, which ended after a loss to Valentina Shevchenko, Carmouche explained that “coming into Bellator I wanted to start a new chapter and do things differently. I had been coming off of what I would say was just kind of a lull in my career, and just not being able to perform at the level I needed to when i was in the UFC. When I left and I came to Bellator, I’m like ‘I’m not going to be that person anymore.’ Going to decisions, not having finishes, not performing to the level that I know I can just isn’t an option anymore.”
Carmouche is proud of now having finishes six of her seven fights with the company, “and I want to keep doing that, whether that’s with PFL, Bellator, or whatever organization is willing to step up and to be able to take care of all these fighters and take us under their arm.”
Watch the full Bellator 300 post-fight press conference with Liz Carmouche above.
