Liz Carmouche says tunnel vision on PFL run keeps her from reliving Valentina Shevchenko triumph

Liz Carmouche is so locked into her future goals of someday adding PFL gold to her mantle, one that also features a Bellator MMA strap, that the focus on the surrounding MMA landscape kind of falls out a bit. As a recent guest on Bowks Talking Bouts, Carmouche touched on several subjects ahead of her fight with Elora Dana in the PFL 2025 flyweight tournament semi-finals.

The former Bellator MMA titleholder was frank in her response regarding whether she had seen her former opponent, Valentina Shevchenko, defend her flyweight belt at UFC 315. Carmouche stated that she had not seen Shevchenko beat Manon Fiorot in May.

When expounding upon why she can get so hyper-focused on her endeavours, and if a lot of outside considerations in the fight world can act as surrounding noise, Carmouche said:

"Very much so. Like, I get so focused on just fight camps. Like I said, just the evolution of myself as a martial artist and as a person that I'll lose track of time."

She added:

"I'll be like 'yeah, I really want to watch this fight.' They're like 'Liz that was last week' and I'm like 'how did I miss it again?' [laughs]. So I definitely get that tunnel vision. Just blinders on, full focus on my fight and what I'm doing ahead of me."

Check out Liz Carmouche's description of her focused mindset below (6:02):

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Liz Carmouche and her MMA history with Valentina Shevchenko

Liz Carmouche is in rarefied air within the sport of mixed martial arts, as she is one of only three women to have beaten Valentina Shevchenko in MMA competition. The other two fighters who can make that claim are Alexa Grasso and Amanda Nunes.

The 41-year-old first threw down with Shevchenko in Sept. 2010, with Carmouche and Shevchenko entering the cage as unbeaten professional fighters at the time. Carmouche would end up handing Shevchenko her first-ever pro MMA loss that night, and it would be nearly a decade later that the two would take their rivalry from C3 Fights to the UFC.

The Louisiana native would have her rematch with Valentina Shevchenko at UFC on ESPN+14 in Aug. 2019. This sequel clash would see Shevchenko defend her 125-pound crown by way of unanimous decision in an outing that saw her tie up the series with Carmouche.

That ended up being Carmouche's final fight inside the UFC cage, where she has since gone on to capture Bellator's flyweight belt, notch multiple defenses of that crown, and now is dutifully working toward someday adding a PFL title to her resume when all is said and done.