Bellator flyweight champion Liz Carmouche expressed mixed feelings about Bellator’s sale to PFL, expressing excitement about the potential earnings and another title, but also uncertainty about the status of her Bellator title and her first match against familiar opponent Juliana Velasquez in the upcoming PFL season.
Liz Carmouche had a whirlwind of emotions when she heard about Bellator’s sale to PFL. The news hit her just a month after her third successful title defense as Bellator’s flyweight champion. She was on tenterhooks, waiting for her next gig. But instead of continuing her journey with Bellator, this seasoned 40-year-old warrior found herself shifting to PFL. She was set to join the upcoming season-long tournament, which was due to start on Thursday.
“The thrill, the potential, especially for a woman, to earn the most money you could ever make in your career, that was super exciting,” Carmouche confessed to MMA Fighting about her move to PFL. “To have another belt in another promotion. Again, really excited.” But there was a flip side. She also wanted to defend the belt she had earned and keep her successful title defenses going.
She had chatted with other fighters like Ilima [Lei-Macfarlane] about the concept of having a season. Knowing when you’re going to fight, the chance to get another belt, it all sounded so thrilling. As part of the PFL season, Carmouche could potentially compete four times in 2024. This would make it her most active year since her debut in 2010, where she had six fights. And let’s not forget the $1 million prize for the winner at the end of the season. That was a nice cherry on top.
But what about her Bellator title?
Well, even Carmouche doesn’t have a clue about that. “I don’t know either,” she admitted with a chuckle. “My answer is we’re both still in limbo. It’s strange, but at the same time, it’s kind of fun. You get a clean slate every year. I treat every title defense like it’s not my belt and I’m going for that belt every single time, so this is exactly what I’m doing. I don’t have to pretend and tell myself that.”
If her status as Bellator champion wasn’t baffling enough, Carmouche also discovered she’d be starting the 2024 PFL season with a familiar adversary. Instead of pitting her against any of the other fighters in the tournament, Carmouche was paired with ex-Bellator champ Juliana Velasquez. A fighter she’s already faced and defeated twice.
“[I was] 150 percent surprised,” Carmouche said of her reaction to the booking. “I thought it was going to be Taila Santos. To me, she seems to be the most dangerous person in there, she’s probably going to be my first-round matchup. Great, let’s get the toughest one out at the beginning and then we can kind of go in order backward. Then, for whatever reason, not having seen Velasquez fight since our last fight, she just didn’t even go on my radar as a possibility of being in the tournament. Of course she is, but I just didn’t think about it.
“So [they told me] ‘it’s going to be Velasquez,’ and [I said], ‘What, no, I think that you got that wrong. What?’ It’s not who I thought it was going to be.”
The logic behind the matchmaking was hard to grasp, but Carmouche promises she’s found plenty of motivation to beat Velasquez for a third time. “She feels like — and a lot of people feel like — that first fight was controversial and that she didn’t actually lose it,” Carmouche said. “I don’t see how when you don’t move your head and you don’t do any defense and you get elbowed with one minute left, I don’t see how that’s not a loss. Then the second one, without a doubt [I won]. To me, that just makes her that much more dangerous.
“To me, at this point, she’s willing to do anything to get a win, to get back in the win column and advance in the tournament. Even if it’s something illegal. If anything, as much as that isn’t the one I expected or the one I wanted, to me she and Taila Santos are the two most dangerous people in this tournament in this moment.”
Carmouche also acknowledges that fighters are notoriously their own worst critics. So there’s always room for improvement. Even with two wins over Velasquez — one by TKO and one by submission — Carmouche expects to do better when they meet again on Thursday.
“Even when I beat [Kana] Watanabe and it was a matter of 37 seconds, something like that, I still was not happy with how I performed,” Carmouche said. “Yes, I beat her and it was a quick and easy finish, but technically-wise, I was not happy with my performance. Same thing with Velasquez. Our first time, I feel like I gave her too much respect and let her kind of instill her way, and I wasn’t happy with how it went down and that there weren’t any doubts. I wish I broke her face, sliced her open, and then we’d have no doubts. That second fight, there’s technical things that look super sloppy that I wasn’t happy with.
“Opportunity No. 3, I get to clean that up. Would I much prefer a challenge of somebody I’ve never faced before and doing something different? Absolutely. But again, when I know that she’s looking to get to that $1 million, it’s not just a third rematch. It’s a rematch to get to a million dollars.”