{"id":759881,"date":"2026-06-25T18:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/759881\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T18:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T18:26:10","slug":"mma-fighter-liz-carmouche-once-a-san-diegan-is-back-for-pfl-bout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/759881\/","title":{"rendered":"MMA fighter Liz Carmouche, once a San Diegan, is back for PFL bout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tPFL San Diego<\/p>\n

Where: Pechanga Arana
When: Saturday; early card, 5 p.m. and main card, 7 p.m.
Who: The main event features AJ McKee and undefeated prospect Salamat Isbulaev. Liz Carmouche also will face Viviane Ara\u00fajo on the 10-fight card.
Tickets: Starting at $80.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>MMA fighter Liz Carmouche. (Photo courtesy of PFL)<\/p>\n

Liz Carmouche is a tough, well-regarded professional mixed martial arts fighter,<\/a> best known as the woman who battled Ronda Rousey in the UFC\u2019s first-ever women\u2019s MMA fight in 2013.<\/p>\n

But a couple of years ago, she tapped out against an ongoing opponent she had battled for years: San Diego\u2019s high cost of living. After being a resident of America\u2019s Finest City for more than 20 years, Carmouche decided to relocate her family, eventually settling in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n

The reason why, she told Times of San Diego, was that she and her wife Braelyn, a longtime horse trainer and rescuer, had a desire to own land for both business and personal reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe rides horses and it was just getting too expensive to try and even replicate even a small version of that San Diego,\u201d Carmouche explained. \u201cAnd when I fought in Orlando, she really liked the energy and how it felt so similar to San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was born and raised in San Diego, she lived there her whole life, and she really liked Florida,\u201d Carmouche said of her wife. \u201cWe were able to find 10 acres in Florida for a fraction of the cost if we had tried something like that in San Diego, so it just seemed like a no brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carmouche hasn\u2019t totally abandoned America\u2019s Finest City, however. She still comes back occasionally when training for fights, and her wife, as a native, also still has ties to the city.<\/p>\n

Carmouche actually will be back in San Diego on a business trip later this month: she\u2019s one half of the co-main event for \u201cPFL San Diego: McKee vs. Isbulaev,\u201d an MMA card <\/a>taking place Saturday at Pechanga Arena. The headliners are Long Beach native AJ McKee and undefeated Russian prospect Salamat Isbulaev.<\/p>\n

Carmouche, 42, will be taking on Brazilian fighter Viviane Ara\u00fajo, 39, in a three-round flyweight (125 lb.) matchup on the 10-fight PFL card. It\u2019ll be only the second time that Carmouche has competed professionally in San Diego during her 16-year career.<\/p>\n

PFL, which stands for Professional Fighters League<\/a>, is a smaller competitor to the UFC, the organization that made Carmouche famous and to which she was signed for six years before being released in 2019.<\/p>\n

Although both she and Ara\u00fajo both were briefly in the UFC at the same time right before the end of Carmouche\u2019s tenure, the two never crossed paths, as Ara\u00fajo was still new and unranked and Carmouche was already a well-established veteran.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe really wasn\u2019t on my radar while I was in the UFC,\u201d Carmouche admitted. \u201cI was looking at the top five (fighters in the women\u2019s flyweight division) at the time and she wasn\u2019t quite there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ara\u00fajo, who was signed by the PFL last year after her own release from the UFC, comes into the fight with a 14-7 record and has alternated wins and losses in her last six fights.<\/p>\n

\u201c(I\u2019m) certainly more familiar with her now and her aggressive striking nature,\u201d Carmouche said. \u201cShe\u2019s a fighter that constantly pushes the tempo and those are the type of fighters I like, because I feel like we bring it and I\u2019m gonna match their tempo.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PFL San Diego Where: Pechanga AranaWhen: Saturday; early card, 5 p.m. and main card, 7 p.m.Who: The main…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,2610,786,785,119905,85],"class_list":["post-759881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cost-of-living","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-pechanga-arena","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}