With 16 years in the game and fights against some of the best women’s fighters in history, Liz Carmouche has more professional credibility than most.
After all, she’s one of those in the pantheon of best women’s fighters in history. And right now, Carmouche, at 42, has to fight at flyweight in the PFL. The promotion doesn’t currently offer a women’s bantamweight division.
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Carmouche, who was the first woman in history to step into a UFC cage when she fought Ronda Rousey in 2013, has a frank assessment of what’s holding bantamweight back in the collective MMA space.
“I’ll give you my honest answer, and I don’t think a lot of people are going to like it,” Carmouche said after her PFL San Diego co-main event submission of Viviane Araujo a week ago (H/T Home of Fight). “My honest answer is that I think that each division needs a pretty girl. Sadly, that’s the world that we live in.
“Right now, the 135 division was led by a masculine-representing female, and that started to kill off the division – which is another reason why I’m probably not the face of this division, either, because I’m not that pretty girl. I’m a masculine presenting female, so I’m not going to represent what’s the appeal to most straight men, which is the strongest fan base in women’s MMA: It’s white males, 18 to 34 years old. They’re looking for women that are pretty. They’re not looking for masculine-presenting women.”
UFC women’s bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison remains on the shelf following surgery, but is expected to return later this year to fight former two-division champ Amanda Nunes, who is returning from retirement.
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In the PFL, absent a bantamweight division for the women, Carmouche next could fight the winner of Dakota Ditcheva and Denise Kielholtz, who fight in the PFL New York co-main event at the end of the month.
And while she no doubt would be glad to have a flyweight title around her waist again, like she did in Bellator before the PFL merger, she’d be much happier at 135.
“I think if we can find a pretty girl for 135, sadly – and I wish that wasn’t the case – but that’s what we need for that division to exploit,” Carmouche said. “Then we can get that and I think having that representing the 135 division, that’s what ultimately (we need).”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Liz Carmouche gets frank about PFL’s lack of women’s bantamweight
