If Liz Carmouche isn’t on the Mt. Rushmore of women’s MMA, then she’s certainly among the sport’s founding mothers.
And as such, her opinion on what’s working and what needs a bit of shaping up carries more weight than others. She thinks the brass at the PFL would be wise to pay attention when she says the promotion needs more weight classes for women.
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Currently, the PFL doesn’t offer a women’s bantamweight division. Bellator didn’t have one, either, and that’s where Carmouche was before that brand was sold to the PFL and dissolved. There, she was the flyweight champ.
But Carmouche isn’t shy about saying her proper division is bantamweight. She was the first women’s fighter to step into a UFC cage when she fought Ronda Rousey in 2013 for the inaugural 135-pound title and broke the UFC’s glass ceiling.
But in the PFL, there’s really just 125 available for Carmouche (26-8), who this past Saturday submitted fellow ex-UFC fighter Viviane Araujo (14-8) with a second-round guillotine choke in the co-main event at PFL San Diego.
“Having watched the 135 division blossom and grow into something beautiful and then watching more divisions open up, I was excited to see the representation of all women in MMA,” Carmouche said at her post-fight news conference at Pechanga Arena. “Selfishly, I would love not to do these crazy weight cuts. They’re not good. I know they’re not good. The only reason I’m doing it is because I would die if I tried to make 115. It’s not even an option. So 125 is the only choice. Selfishly, of course I want a 135 division so it’d be easier.
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“But I also hate seeing all that work and all that effort put into growing each weight class just start to dwindle away. It makes me sad to see all that growth disappear. I want to keep adding weight classes because women are not just two body types. It’s ridiculous. Look at Cris Cyborg. If they didn’t have a 145 division, we would have never seen her. She represents all women. She’s the legend of legends, so how can we deny that there are more weight classes that should be available?”
Carmouche’s next fight, she suspects, might be for a PFL inaugural flyweight title. The division’s current standout, Dakota Ditcheva, returns at the end of the month to fight Denise Kielholtz.
Check out Carmouche’s post-fight news conference above (H/T Home of Fight)
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: PFL’s Liz Carmouche pushing for more divisions in women’s MMA
