Rivalries: Liz Carmouche

Liz Carmouche’s resume lacks only a major mixed martial arts title.

The Strikeforce, Ultimate Fighting Championship and Invicta Fighting Championships veteran will challenge the unbeaten Juliana Velasquez for the Bellator MMA women’s flyweight crown in the Bellator 278 headliner on Friday at the Neil S. Blaisdell Center in Honolulu. Carmouche, 38, rides a three-fight winning streak into the five-round main event. She last competed at Bellator 261, where she routed Kana Watanabe with punches a mere 35 seconds into their June 25 encounter.

As Carmouche approaches her high-stakes battle with Velasquez, a look at some of the rivalries that have helped shape her career to this point:

Marloes Coenen

“Rumina” survived a significant scare from the previously undefeated Carmouche and retained her women’s bantamweight championship when she submitted the former Marine with a triangle choke in the fourth round of their Strikeforce “Feijao vs. Henderson” co-main event on March 5, 2011 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Coenen sealed the deal 1:29 into Round 4, and with that, a dramatic comeback was hers. Carmouche bullied the Golden Glory standout for much of the matchup. A late replacement for the injured Miesha Tate, she took down, mounted and punished the seasoned titleholder with ground-and-pound in the second and third rounds. Coenen looked uncharacteristically out of sorts off her back, as the challenger twice moved into a high mounted position and unleashed relentless volleys of punches and hammerfists. Her right eye visibly swollen, Coenen again had to fight from her back in the fourth round. This time, however, she turned the tide in her favor. She trapped Carmouche in full guard, snaked her legs around the challenger’s neck, tightened the triangle choke and waited for the tapout. Carmouche fought to free herself, but with no means of escape, surrender became her only option. A reluctant tapout followed.

Ronda Rousey

Carmouche put the then-Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s bantamweight titleholder in serious trouble for the first time in her career before succumbing to what most viewed as inevitable: a first-round armbar in their historic UFC 157 headliner on Feb. 23, 2013 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. Rousey elicited the tapout 4:49 into Round 1, bringing a decisive close to the first women’s bout in UFC history. Her latest triumph was easily her most difficult. Carmouche capitalized on the judoka’s trademark aggression, moved to her back a little more than a minute into the fight and went to work on a submission of her own, first with a standing rear-naked choke and then with a neck crank. Rousey was in visible distress but fought through the pain and panic to free herself from Carmouche’s clutches. The onetime Olympic bronze medalist powered into top position and methodically softened Carmouche for her patented maneuver. The challenger tried desperately to escape, but Rousey was relentless in her pursuit of the finish and finally isolated the arm after an extended struggle.

Jessica Andrade

Team Hurricane Awesome’s Carmouche dispatched the Brazilian powerhouse with heavy ground-and-pound in the second round of their UFC on Fox 8 women’s bantamweight showcase on July 27, 2013 at KeyArena in Seattle. Andrade checked out 3:57 into Round 2. Five months after she failed in her bid to capture UFC gold at 135 pounds, Carmouche was in prime form. The Lafayette, Louisiana, native struck for multiple takedowns and weathered an attempted guillotine choke from Andrade in the first round. In the second, Carmouche delivered another takedown, passed to side control, mounted the Parana Vale Tudo export and threatened her with a rear-naked choke before unleashing her ground-and-pound. Transitioning between back control and full mount, Carmouche dropped heavy punches and sharp elbows with authority, ultimately forcing the stoppage with an accumulation of blows.

Alexis Davis

The Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt moved to 2-0 in her head-to-head series with Carmouche when she eked out a split decision in their UFC Fight Night 123 rematch on Dec. 9, 2017 at the Save Mart Center in Fresno, California. All three cageside judges scored it 29-28: Jason McCoy for Carmouche, Derek Cleary and Ron McCarthy for Davis. It was competitive from start to finish. Davis—who had also outpointed the Louisiana native at UFC Fight Night 31 in November 2013—threatened with a tight armbar in the first round and tripped her counterpart to the canvas in the second, using her ground-and-pound to pass guard and chew up clock. Carmouche was at her best in the standup exchanges—she raised a grotesque swelling on the left side of the Canadian’s face—and had Davis reeling in the third round, where she cut loose with both hands before shooting on a puzzling takedown. Davis answered with another armbar and later swept into top position, closing the door on the favored Team Hurricane Awesome representative.

Valentina Shevchenko

“Bullet” showed no signs of weakness and dominated in all phases when she laid claim to a lopsided unanimous decision against Carmouche to retain her flyweight title in the UFC Fight Night 156 headliner on Aug. 10, 2019 at Antel Arena in Montevideo, Uruguay. All three cageside judges arrived at the same verdict: 50-45 for the incomparable Shevchenko, who avenged a September 2010 defeat to the “Girl-Rilla” and evened their rivalry at 1-1. Carmouche did not stand much of a chance and looked like a fighter who was in touch with reality. Her passivity played right into Shevchenko’s hands, as the champion tore into her with leg kicks, front kicks to the body, lightning-quick punching bursts and even a few spinning backfists. She also handled Carmouche on the ground, where she stymied the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt in top position across significant chunks of time and made her all-terrain supremacy known.

DeAnna Bennett

Carmouche dazzled in her Bellator MMA debut, as she submitted “Vitamin D” with a rear-naked choke in the in the third round of their featured Bellator 246 pairing on Sept. 12, 2020 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Bennett—who was five pounds overweight for the flyweight match—bowed out 3:17 into Round 3. The two women took turns at the reins throughout the first 10 minutes of a grappling-centric confrontation. Carmouche countered a takedown in the third round, wheeled behind the Killer B Combat Sports rep and jumped to the back. Before Bennett realized the peril at hand, the choke was in place. Carmouche cut off all avenues of escape as they collapsed to the canvas and prompted the tapout. It was her first successfully executed submission in more than eight years and established her as an immediate player at 125 pounds.