Outside the Octagon
Hosted by Charleston K. Payne and Jude Starns, where every episode is the MAIN EVENT! The guys cover all MMA major events, previewing and recapping while also bringing in many MMA guests from all walks of life!
Outside the Octagon
From Marine to MMA Champion The Liz Carmouche Story
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Embark on a captivating journey with Liz Carmouche, an MMA trailblazer and former Marine, as she recounts her ascent to the top of the Professional Fighters League. Her story begins with a BJ Penn book in the sands of Iraq, leading to her current quest for the PFL's million-dollar bounty. With candid revelations, Liz shares how her military service has chiseled her into a disciplined warrior in the cage, and how she's navigated the transition from Bellator to the strategic combat of the PFL.
Experience the tactical depth of MMA as Liz delves into the nuances of the PFL's point system and the adrenaline of facing Juliana Velasquez in a high-stakes trilogy. She gives us an insider's perspective on psychological warfare, the importance of early finishes, and adapting to the unique environment of the PFL cage. Listeners are treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the strategic dance of preparing for opponents like Venice Aporto and the history-making bout with Ronda Rousey that opened the UFC's doors to female fighters.
Peel back the curtain on the life of an elite MMA athlete, where Liz illuminates the grueling process of weight cutting and the meticulous recovery needed to step into the cage at peak performance. She walks us through her disciplined daily routine, the profound influence of her military background, and her admiration for the martial arts spirit that transcends the fight itself. Whether you're a dedicated MMA fan or intrigued by the dedication of high-level athletes, this episode promises to enrich your understanding of the sport and the warriors who shape it.
So, first of all, this is a very, very special opportunity for the Outside the Octagon podcast and it's a great honor to announce a true trailblazer to the game of MMA and a true trailblazer to the sport and also a trailblazer for our podcast the first ever guest of the Outside the Octagon podcast, ms Liz Karmouche. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you're happy to be here and I'm very excited to get to speak with you and ask you some of these questions that we got ready for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So. Starting out, first of all, I just want to say thank you for your service. I know I saw where you had served in the Marine Corps and I mean that's incredible and I really do appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you Absolutely. So I mean it's super exciting to be able to kick this thing off with our first guest here. I know the PFL is kind of a new thing for you.
Speaker 3:What got you into that? They got bought out when they were Bellator, so I was with Bellator. Pfl bought them out. Smooth transition opportunity for another belt. Super appealing, couldn't turn down right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's got to be exciting, especially being able to fight for the prize at the end being the million dollar prize and stuff, if you are able to hold the belt there. So I know you're pretty stoked about that, I would assume yeah, absolutely yeah. So uh, tell us about the life of you, like, like, what got you to this point? How did you get there? You know, like growing up and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't know anything about MMA growing up, even though I grew up in Japan. It just wasn't something that was on my radar. I really didn't learn about it until I deployed to Iraq my first time. Everybody deployed with us watching it. I started watching Strikeforce and I saw Chris Cyborg fighting, thought that I could fight her, just get that close to myself, and didn't want to say that out loud because sounded ridiculous even when I said it. Then, um and um tried doing I read like a bj penn book, tried doing his workouts, his nutrition, try to teach myself technique from the book. And then knew that I wasn't. I was missing an element, I wasn't doing it right. And when I, the Marine Corps decided to give everything I have and try and do it and I didn't. I've never looked back since.
Speaker 1:Right. So one question that I wanted to ask you, leading up to this for sure, is like being in the Marine Corps and being out there, you know, doing your tours that you had done in Iraq and stuff like that, do you feel like that gives you like a sort of competitive edge whenever you're in the octagon with somebody?
Speaker 3:yeah, it definitely does like it's. It's different and it's unique from from anything else that you experience, but you certainly learn how to have the discipline because of the adversity that you face. I mean, being a marine, we're the least funded, so everything that we did. Sometimes we're like, okay, we need you to complete this task and you're given nothing but, but you have to succeed, right. So it teaches you that in order for you to succeed in this sport, you can't have the best facility and all the little cool gimmicks and a sports therapist on site, massage therapist on site, all the fun stuff. Sometimes it's in the back of a garage and it's you driving cross country, just going to pull over to the side of the road and do some workouts and that that's helped me in the cage, knowing that I gave everything I had and other people decided not to because they're having a bad hair day or something along those lines.
Speaker 2:Right. So so you say that you watched Strikeforce and that's kind of what got you in MMA, was there?
Speaker 3:anything during your childhood or maybe your high school or whatever years in your younger years that really influenced you other than just watching Strike Force when you was in the Marines to get in the MMA? Is it a direct correlation? No, but I think just because all the sports I was in I was always on the losing team. I was never, in my entire time, ever playing any sport, was I ever on a winning team, and every time that I gave everything I had.
Speaker 3:You can't be one person giving 100% on a team.
Speaker 3:It's just not going to make you succeed, and I hated coming out of every single game, every single practice, knowing that I committed everything I had and it just wasn't enough to win the games.
Speaker 3:And every team always got the sportsmanship award and that was it. It was never anything else. And it left such a bitter taste in my mouth and I knew that if I could find a sport where my efforts, if I gave a hundred percent, it's 110% effort reflected in my performance and then if I decided to be lazy a day would also be reflected, that was something I wanted to do and that's when I learned about MMA and knew that that was a fit for me, because you have full control. When you decide to skip practices and you decide to cheat on your diet and don't put in the work and don't put in the effort, you see it in your performance and a direct correlation. So I knew that I could train and work harder and have more discipline and more work ethic than anyone else out there and I'd be able to reflect that in my performances in the cage.
Speaker 1:What sports did you play while you were growing up?
Speaker 3:For the most part, soccer. I played a little bit of basketball, a little bit of baseball, softball football, but for the most part soccer was the one that I was most consistent and most competitive with. I did the longest.
Speaker 1:Okay, what position did you play when you were in soccer? I'm not a super big soccer guy, but it is interesting to me and I've started since the last world cup. You know, I started picking up on and stuff and the, the women's national team and stuff for the US. They've been pretty hot recently so it's kind of an enjoyable to watch.
Speaker 3:To tell you the truth, yeah, yeah, I mean growing up. I think that anybody that's played since they were young, they had the advantage of playing every position. But through the later years of high school I got stuck in goalie. They had brought in a new girl that had only ever done cheerleading and she was just kind of like flirty with the coach. He's like, oh, we're going to put you as a goalie. I'm like what she flinches away. That's embarrassing. No, I, I'm gonna show you. She has no right being in here.
Speaker 3:And I went in just to make a point that like I don't want to be goalie, but she certainly shouldn't be goalie. He's like, hey, you know, you actually did really good, we're gonna push you. Like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to play goalie. And then I ended up doing really well and, uh, getting all these awards for it and, um, all this other stuff. So as a result, I got stuck in playing goalie for the rest of the time in high school, I think from my sophomore to senior year. I ended up playing In my eighth grade year I was able to play for the high school varsity team as an eighth grade, which usually didn't happen, and when I was doing that I mostly played defense and then my freshman year I started as defense but then once I made a point of saying that girl shouldn't play and went out there and did the trials with her, I got stuck.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:So I mean, I would assume it's pretty safe to say that you've been quite athletic for your entire life growing up. Yeah, I would. I wouldn't say it was a great soccer player, wasn't a great, wasn't a great athlete? The only thing was is I was a stubborn and I understood work ethic. I loved sports. I loved sports more than school.
Speaker 3:It's where I felt comfortable, where I felt home, where I felt friends. It was my escape from everything. You know, like if I was having a bad day, you can go outside and smash a baseball or kick a soccer ball or throw a football and you feel a little bit better. And I wasn't great at any of them. But I also had the work ethic to sit out there as the sun setting, not realizing that I had been out there for six hours just dribbling, trying to get better at it, and I think that's that's honestly, more than anything. The sustainability that I had for discipline and work ethic that I applied in was in athletics. I certainly did not have that same mentality when it came to school and applying it to grades and things like that.
Speaker 2:Right, so moving more towards the MMA side of things. So your nickname is Girl Rilla, is there? Anything is there any reason behind that nickname? Is there any deeper meaning to it? Like, how did you come up with that nickname?
Speaker 3:So for the most part, not very many fighters actually come up with their fight names. Is there coaches or a teammate that comes up with that nickname? Uh, so for the most part, not very many fighters actually come up with their fight names. It's their coaches or a teammate that comes up with them. It sticks, um, sometimes it's even I've seen fighters where it's an announcer. It's something they did, they got, they get named for it.
Speaker 3:So I definitely didn't pick that. I would have never picked that. Um, it was just because, uh, just stupid fits of strength. I was the only person my size on our fight team and I was willing to go up against the heavyweight guys and brawl with them and go as hard as I wanted, and I would usually run up the cage and just do stupid fits of strength. This just didn't seem to fit and, um, pick people up and slam them on the ground, cause I knew how to do football tackles but I didn't know wrestling, so I just applied what I knew from football and just football tackle anybody any size, and he's like oh you have, you have like the strength of a gorilla. He's like but you're a girl gorilla, and it just fit from there.
Speaker 1:Wow, I like that.
Speaker 3:That's interesting.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that you had like a legitimate story to go behind it too and, uh, something that that kind of leads to you know, with you saying, like your aggression and stuff like that. Another question that I had for you would be watching you fight, and watching your most recent fight you came out in the second third round and you just straight ran at, ran at Juliana and did your stuff. From that point forward, you know so, like what, what's your thought process whenever you get into the octagon? And are you knowing at that point that as soon as the door closes behind you and the announcer says go, then is that whenever you're gonna like, go full force and go, take everything out that you can give?
Speaker 3:yeah, to some extent. Yes, you know, I think I used to try and feel it out and to the ufc cage is so huge you're having to run across to your opponent and even the bellator cage though it seems like now, having fought in the pfl cage, the smart cage, it's a little bit smaller than all three of them, um, and when I looked at the dimensions it seemed like it was the same size as the bellator cage, but it's not so. I looked in there. You know, like with the ufc cage, I felt like I had to run across before I would get to my opponent just to be able to start the fight and there's always so much room to maneuver and to move within that where people could run away from you. I don't feel like that in the pfl cage.
Speaker 3:Um, but it's a matter with pFL is for us to progress to the tournament and to have the highest chance to get into the finals, you have to finish your opponent in the first round of the fight and that's what I was going for. I was trying from the very get go just to finish her. I'm like, the quicker I finished this, the more points I get, the higher in the ranking system, the guarantee to get into the finals. That's all I was looking for was just gunning to finish her every moment of that fight and I think I've kind of carried that over with my experience through Bellator, having learned from all the mistakes I made when I was in the UFC and I know I'm a big fan of the way the PFL works.
Speaker 2:I'm interested to see as a fighter do you like the format of the PFL better Is?
Speaker 3:there anything that you like better about Bellator UFC rather than PFL? Um, I mean, when you think stylistically your opportunities to finish um, you know there are opportunities within within fighting Juliana, where if I've been able to throw elbows, that would change the whole dynamics of the fight and I would have been able to open up to get better submissions and not just be held there. Um certainly makes things a faster format, but also much more dangerous. Like it's exciting when you see somebody get cut and them chasing after this. I know for fans elbows can be exciting, but I also understand logistically how that plans out for the whole season.
Speaker 3:Right, and I do like the, the unbiased the. You get AI rating for ranking for how your fight went right. So it's not just you're making a decision based on a boxing commission that's voting on whether or not you won the fight when they don't know anything about mma, right, so that's great to me. They're using actual mma experienced people to vote on these fights. That's amazing compared to what it's been and um, then they're also taking like speed of the strikes. There's just a lot more to me, a lot less bias going into it and nobody's advancing into the finals just because it's a pretty girl that everybody likes has a million followers on Instagram. If you advance to the finals, it's because you finish all your fights by the first round, right, so you know exactly where you're in standing, and I definitely prefer that over Bellator and PFL or over Bellator and UFC, where I felt like girls would get an opportunity to fight for the belt just because they're the pretty girls with tons of followers on Instagram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes total sense to me. And one thing that stood out to me about you is you fought Juliana Velasquez and clearly she's a great fighter. She's 12-0 against anybody not named Liz Karmouche, and what's that feel like? You know one thing that I've always noticed about UFC, pfl, bellator, all those fight sports in general one thing that's hard to do is it's hard to beat somebody three times, and you got that. You know you got the edge over her. So, like, what's your thought process going into each fight against her?
Speaker 3:And one thing that also stood out to me is you finished her in all three possible ways the ko, the sub, and then you beat her by decision recently yeah, you know, um, yeah, it's in my mind that kind of should completely eliminate her mind that she's won right and for any of her fans like I saw them commenting leading before the fight like juliana, kill liz. Like in what world she's already lost to. There's no way she's winning a third. Even though it was like a really crappy weight cut for me, I'm still not going to lose this woman. I refuse to.
Speaker 3:And the reality is I get to live in her head, rent free, for the rest of her career If she never fights again. Her only losses are to me. So I get to be there and I get to move on with my fight career and keep fighting. I mean, since the last time I faced her, I've had two fights. She's had none. The only losses she had, the only fights she's had in the past two years, are with me, whereas I've fought three other people since her. You know, like that, that says something, um, and to me that shows somebody that maybe is already defeated and they don't have a lot of advancement with the pfl. It's possible that one of the other girls could get injured in the next part of the season, be out, and juliana could come back in. There's always that possibility and for all we know, I'm gonna face her fourth time and have to do this all over again and find some other crazy way to finish her do you have any other ways in mind?
Speaker 3:if it does come to that, um, well, one thing like when I fought in in the pfl cage I didn't realize is there's like a gap between the mats and the actual cage. So when I tried to take her down I couldn't pull her leg. I'm like man, she's not that much stronger. This doesn't make any sense. And it's because her foot was wedged in in down so I legitimately couldn't pull it out because it wasn't going to happen. Um, so at least now I know, going into it, how to make those adjustments for the fight. And then you saw, in like the second and third round, I completed the takedown, having recognized in the first round the mistakes I was making with the takedown. So at least now I know going into it. So I faced her again. It's just a matter of just I'm going to have to rip off some limb and take it home and make sure it's completely put her to sleep so he can just quiet any notion idea that she should be fighting me again right, was there?
Speaker 1:one more question about that fight was, for me at least, was there any nerves or anything when she got you with that leg lock towards the end. I was kind of getting a little nervous and then you flipped it right around. I mean you made it look like it was nothing and submit and got her with the heel hook right there towards the end and I thought she was going to tap to that yeah, I felt her ankle tear.
Speaker 3:It wasn't enough tension laying and taking it for me to get her knee um. I, honestly I wasn't worried about it. I was more annoyed that she thought that she would get it, um I, I let her up in that scramble because I was hoping to get something else, to be able to finish the fight and get a submission or get an exchange to capitalize better, um. So I let her get into that position. When she went for my heel, I'm like, oh, you're gonna go for my heel, let me show you the heel hook really is um. But what I didn't factor in was like how slippery the tape was on those gloves. I had a good grip and a good bite on it and I could feel her ankle and hear her ankle tearing. But I knew I couldn't get the right grip on it because of the slipperiness of the the tape to be able to get the tension on her knee that needed to actually finish it.
Speaker 2:Right. So I've never been in an actual cage fight, but I know in a street fight you fight out of instincts a lot of times. So when you're fighting professionally, is there a game plan coming in or do you fight more out of instincts? What do you think personally? What do you do?
Speaker 3:I think it has to be both. So many opponents I have faced where, like when I faced venice apporto, she has more fights than I do and when I went into it she was way more experienced than I was. I think she had five more professional fights than I did and maybe more amateur as well. Um, so when I faced her, the game we had a game plan and she did not act how she did in 27 professional fights. She acted completely different, and so at that point it was kind of had to adjust on the fly, and I find that more often than not, the more that I face people, they adjust because of me and they don't go out there and implement their usual game plan. So we may have one and then I just have to go out there and change on the fly. So to some degree it's like okay, well, these are their strengths and weaknesses to keep in mind, but I need to concentrate on what I implement better and just focus on myself more so than my opponent.
Speaker 1:Right. So what's it feel like? To kind of know that in a sense, you're the person that caused all this. You know the women's MMA like this. There's a chance that this wouldn't be a thing without you because with the Rousey fight, to open up your MMA career with the UFC and to open up the UFC to a whole new thing with the women's division. You know, for the Rousey fight from what I've heard, they had called and offered multiple different opponents to her and you were the first person that picked up the phone. After a long day of working out and stuff, you were the first person that picked up the phone and said, yeah, I'll take that fight the first person that picked up the phone and said, yeah, I'll take that fight.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it's crazy, um, because for me at that time especially, I would get in trouble because somebody would call me uh, anybody, a promoter, call me like, hey, you want this fight? I'm like, yes, I want to fight. And I wouldn't look up the person, I didn't know, it was just, yes, I just want an opportunity to fight. And have to call my coach and be like hey, by the way, umand-so, offered me this fight against whomever. And they're like no, they have 30 fights, you have two fights. And they had, like, a Muay Thai career and they had this. I'm like so, yes or no? And you know, my coach had to be the one that stepped in because I just wanted to fight and he was the one that kind of had to look out for me and look out with what's best for your career. Because, out for me and look out with what's best for your, your career, because there are benefits to fighting people with so much more experience over you but at the same time, like you have to, there's a reason why so much experience can beat somebody that's inexperienced. You learn from your mistakes, so there certainly is a benefit, but there's also a huge risk, because you could easily get defeated by somebody.
Speaker 3:Um, but with that being said, there was no losing in that opportunity for me. When they called, there was no doubt in my mind the UFC is what everybody dreamed about fighting in for women that had never been touched. It was unpaved territory, new grounds that had never been covered, and that's what we all dreamed about was having an opportunity to fight in the UFC. So when they offer that, there was no doubt in my mind. Not even thinking about all the stress and all the pressure that went with it, I just knew that this was the start of something really awesome and there was no way I wouldn't want to be a part of that.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I mean, that's gotta be just like a really good feeling, you know, just to be able to know that you're the person that that opened the door for all these other women's fighters in MMA at this point. You know because, like you said, everybody's dream at one point in time was to get to that UFC level and you open that door for every woman that has stepped through it since you yeah, it's definitely a crazy feeling.
Speaker 3:Um, there are moments where, like, I have an eight-year-old son and so he'll he'll ask me things. Um, and step back and explain. He's like, why do people say that you're famous, you know? Like, why do people come up more, like want to take pictures of you and stuff? He's like what does that mean? And I'm like I mean ultimately it means nothing. But I'll explain like, oh well, the reason why is because this is like wait really. So it's really when I step back and I explained to him where I'm talking with my nephew or something where I realized like holy crap, this is kind of insane. My nephew's like hey, you're in my, my history book, you're in my cultural book, you're in this, and that I'm like all right, that's. That's crazy that I'm in any anybody's school books for any reason. So I think it's in those moments when, like, my nephew or my son bring up something that allows me to step back and kind of put into perspective everything that I've done in my career.
Speaker 2:Right, so you've been. You've worked your way all the way up to the top, and you've been at the top of the women's game for a long time now, and then the game in general in the fighting world. So how do you stay hungry? How do you continue to stay hungry and won't fight, like what fuels you?
Speaker 3:Um, the love of martial arts. I love learning, you know. Um, I love testing my body and seeing the limits, seeing what else I can do. Uh, I can go in there every day and there's something new to learn whether it's applying. I learned some new Taekwondo move and I'm trying to apply that and how that works into the elements of MMA. I see a cool, flashy move that's done and can I incorporate it in, you know like? Well, my knee kind of bends, funny this way. Can that be used as a move and counter for this? There's always something new. And then once I've tried something new within fight camp and within the realm of training it's, can I actually apply it under pressure and fight Like there's a huge risk if I do this, but it's a huge win if I can. Is it worth trying to try that out when that big mistake could cost me so much in a fight? And I love that possibility of being able to see what I can do.
Speaker 3:And I've messed up more often than I've succeeded trying new things. I've laughed at myself within the actual realm of the fight around my that was stupid, I knew I shouldn't have done that. And look at my coach. He's like why did you do that? I told you not to Um. And then other times I'm like hey, that was pretty cool, like I pull it off, and he's like I can't believe you did that, um, and I love it. I love being able to go out there. We laugh, like my coaches now we tried and they're like it didn't really cost you much or hey, you know, like you got on bottom because you tried that. But we all laugh. At the end of the day it's laughing about those opportunities and experiencing something with other people that are like-minded and tried to evolve and have a love of martial arts and want to study everything about us.
Speaker 1:Right. So to go back to kind of your days holding the belt with Bellator, I kind of wanted to ask this question when you fought Bennett for the belt, what made you decide to still risk losing your belt at that point, even though I'm sure you were confident in yourself that you weren't going to lose your belt? What made you decide to take that chance anyway, after she wasn't able to make the weight cut and she wouldn't have been able to gain the belt regardless had she won?
Speaker 3:So two things with that. With one, I'm never that confident that I'm ever going to win a fight, even like everybody's. Like you've already beat velasquez two times. You, you have this. Third. I'm like it's in the main I've seen I broke my ankle backstage warming up and going out to face somebody where I should have beat them, and now I can't walk on that ankle and I can't move and do the things I need to. You know, like I've, um, made a mistake where I'm like, oh, that that hurt a lot in a fight, so I never go into there overconfident, like I got this, this is guaranteed.
Speaker 3:Um, and the same thing with Bennett. You know, like she was grossly overweight the first time that we face each other and I was very clear with Bellator like, hey, if you're going to let Bennett, who I don't think deserves the right to be able to fight for the belt, she needs to actually make weight, and she never makes weight In her career. Her call to fame is never making weight, having wrestled in middle school and high school, like, how do you always miss weight? She can't be a champion if she doesn't make weight. I don't want to put my body through hell and I make the weight as the professional that I am. But she's not going to. And Bellator reassured me that wasn't going to happen. And if it did, she wouldn't have a chance. And of course she didn't make weight. She didn't even look like she was struggling or trying. She wasn't sweating, going on the scale, she was completely dry and fine, wasn't sucked up.
Speaker 3:I was like I knew. I knew she wasn't going to make weight. I knew it. She never makes weight. Um and um, they're like well, this is the end of your contract, so you can take this fight, or or not. Like okay, well, cool. So I didn't really have much of a choice. You know I underplayed it and stuff, but they didn't give me much of a choice and I wanted to fall into the realm of false confidence, like I knew for sure. I had that fight and I had no doubts in my mind. But I also know that, as usual, I put my body through hell to make weight and again she missed weight and got to have the comfort of floating off those extra pounds and coming in enormous when I finally faced her. Um, but I trusted my coaches and they, they knew that I had it and they guaranteed me that we can do it. So I trusted them and took the risk.
Speaker 1:Right From what I see and from what I've heard about your career, it seems like you have an incredible relationship with all of your coaches and your whole staff and you know, obviously, with you keeping in touch with them, keeping them on the social media and stuff like that, it seems like you have like more of like a family lock with them than some other UFC fighters may have, or MMA fighters in general PFL, bellator, all that you know. It seems like you may be more like a family tie with them.
Speaker 3:on those to say, you know than than some of the other fighters out there. Yeah, I feel like um, my coaching staff now definitely does a better job at um, like communicating and trying to understand the weaknesses. They understand that the psychology part is very important within that and so I wouldn't say it's a family, but I certainly know that we're all there for each other when we need each other. And I could call them right now and be like hey, I'm going through this, my coach would talk me through it. I would never want to put that on him because to me, that's just not a coach's responsibility, isn't? He's not supposed to be my psychologist, my psychiatrist, right? And I know a lot of female fighters and a lot of people do that. They put their coaches in those positions and I get it.
Speaker 3:Your coach becomes a very important person in your life and you have to be able to trust them because you're putting your body at risk and when you go out there, you have to trust that the guidelines that they're giving you, the game plans that they're doing, the approach that you're doing, the weight cut, that everything is done, that you trust your coach to lead you in the right way and if not, you're putting yourself in harm's way and great risk.
Speaker 3:So you do have to put a lot of trust in your coaches, and the connection too is that one of my coaches is from Guam and so, having grown up in Japan, guam is very close and there's a lot of cultural similarities there that I'm able to bond with him.
Speaker 3:And then my other coach is also in the military, so we bond in that way too. So we have very, very close thinking style for all of us and we all absolutely love martial arts and we all believe in the evolution of ourselves and in the sport, and I think that just helps us uniquely tie together and I do. They're friends of mine, they're close, they're people that, if you know, like we can hang out during COVID and just joke around and watch MTV ridiculousness and catfish and just laugh and shoot the shit and have a good time and then go get punched in the face Like, look, I'm like, yeah, that was really stupid, like, yeah, it was my well, whatever, we'll do it again. You know, and I, it's definitely a really close relationship and two people that I really appreciate having in life. It's definitely a really close relationship and two people that I really appreciate having in life.
Speaker 2:So is there any like nerves before a fight? And if there is, how? How do you deal with those nerves?
Speaker 3:How do you cope with them? There's definitely still nerves, honestly, at the fight. Once I get to the venue, especially once I get in the cage, it's less there. I hate the waiting game, like when they close the door and they're like, ah, I'm like don't do the long, just say Liz Karmush and whoever I'm facing, go, let's not do this line. When it's like five minutes drawn, I'm like this is I just want to go and fight, right. So you get like that hype and it's almost like a nerve drop that happens just because you waited so long and you're just in that desperation. Please just let me fight.
Speaker 3:In that, that holding stage um, the day of the fight honestly, is in fight week is when the nerves didn't more for me. I think, just because I overthink everything. I'm trying to think of all the different finishes and, okay, well, this game plan, what if they do this? I just overthink things and that's what makes the nerves come into play. Um, and but once I get to the fight, once I I step in and we touch gloves, it's all gone. At that point it's a fist fight. You know, if there are any nerves, they're going to get punched out of each other real quick. So that definitely helps get rid of the nerves.
Speaker 1:Right. So one more question that I had for you, like kind of pre-fight, kind of building off of what Judith asked just then what's something interesting that you do kind of like before every fight, whether like when it's when you're in the locker room, whether it's during your walkout? What's something interesting that you do that kind of like, whether it be take the nerves away or just in general? What's something that you do that just set your mind apart from from the fight?
Speaker 3:uh, I think probably, like I said, just shooting the shit with the coaches on on fight day. It's usually like all fight week it's low energy, no anything. I'm just sitting in my room just vegging out just trying to do the media, do the production stuff that they need, um, do pictures, get my makeup done and hair done, which I can't do myself because I'm not that type of person. Uh, and then fight day is just about relaxing, taking your mind off the fights. We're usually in there just joking. The entire day is just eating food, getting ready for the fight, resting and just laughing the entire time watching Ridiculousness, watching Catfish, like seriously, those are the two shows we usually watch on MTV because they always play in hotels or if it's a food network and we're talking about like yeah, I could definitely do that Like no and do that like no. There's no way I could ever pull that off. But usually fight day for me is just shooting shit.
Speaker 1:It's just joking, having a good time, keeping everything light-hearted so that I can go in carefree into the fight, just be able to focus on that right so I hate to kind of bounce back topics you know I usually try not to do that but one thing that I want to ask you, that I want to ask every, every mma person that we have the opportunity to ask any questions to what is like the process of the weight cut and how challenging is that? Because you see some of these fighters, they'll kind of like walk you through it and like post it, keep you updated on social media and it looks like it's just the roughest time of your life. So can you kind of tell me like what that's like? Because you know, clearly a guy like me, I haven't been able to get in the office, but I would just like to know the process, like what your mindset is going through it and how you really push to get through that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not going to lie, weight cuts suck. Um, I think everybody has it different. Um, talking to other fighters doing the research, I know I my weight cuts are a lot more intense than most people. Uh, I caught. It usually takes me, on average, 12 hours to cut weight. So I do uh, what's called uh, do a bath with epsom salt, I cook myself in that and then I go roll myself in a burrito full of like plastics, towels, blankets, and just do that. Um, and it's just back and forth between cooking myself in the bathtub, a hot sauna, and doing the burrito for 12 hours until I can finally make food. No eating, no drinking water. I usually stop drinking water and stop eating the day before I do the weight cut. So for 48 hours I don't eat or drink water.
Speaker 1:Wow. So it's almost like going through like a fast of some sort in a way, kind of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, fast. But putting your body through attempting to kill it and letting it survive and then trying to rehydrate it and refuel it and needing it to do the best performance of its life after just trying to kill it.
Speaker 1:So how do you get to that point? How do you get like refueled and everything leading up to the fight, because the weight cuts and the weigh-ins are typically like a day or two before you know.
Speaker 3:So you only really have 24 to 48 hours typically. To be able to get back into that 12 to 24 hours, 48, would be great. We definitely don't get 48 hours. I wish it'd be amazing. Um, yeah, so I have.
Speaker 3:Um, I mean, the hardest part is just trying to rehydrate your body and refuel it without overdoing it, because I think that I know that I've gotten rhabdomyolysis before, so I've overcut and then rehydrate to the point where I put on too much weight and it just slowed down my body and it caused my liver and my kidneys to shut down and get failure, caused my body to break down the protein into basically almost sepsis and like poison my body. So I've been there, done that, learned from that, um still managed to go out there and fight, even with rapto. Don't know how I did it, um. So every, every fight is like trying to be conscious of realizing that it's. It's a very thin line for me. My weight cut is damn near death's door every time that I make it to 125, which is why I've tried to push for PFL and Bellator to do 135 division, because I'll make the weight at 125 and I'll go out there and put on my best performance, but I'm risking getting hospitalized every single time I do it.
Speaker 3:So I try and do things where I'm rehydrating with the healthiest stuff.
Speaker 3:When I do refuel and get food in my system I'm not eating junk food, you know, like everybody's, like I just want to.
Speaker 3:You want to first take the gallon of water and just chug the whole thing as fast as possible. But you have to think like your organs are all dehydrated, your intestines are dehydrated, so if you shoot water down it you risk like tearing your intestines and messing up your body and getting sick. And so if in that state, if you force too much water, you could then vomit, and you don't have anything to vomit, so you're just doing a detriment to your body. So it's about, like mentally again being disciplined and controlling and sipping water slowly when all you want to do is just finally get some water and get some salt on your lips. And the same thing with food is you finally taste food again for the first time in 48 hours, and when you're that depreciated again, again you just want to overeat to the point where you make yourself sick, and so it's about controlling yourself then and everything is just those, the two days, the fight, that dehydrating day and then the rehydrating day. Even the fight day is just all about discipline and adhering to that right.
Speaker 2:So you've been around for and reached a point that most athletes in the sport never reached. How has what is something that you've done to keep your body healthy is? You've been, you're still in great shape, which most fighters that reach that point they just most fighters don't get there in general. So you're in great shape. How do you stay in that great of shape?
Speaker 3:uh, for one, I don't drink. I know that. Uh, you know, like a lot of fighters drink alcohol and stuff. I don't drink. Um, I used to and then I just realized that there's no point. I'm supposed to be an elite, professional athlete. Why would I put something, a poison, in my body? That's just doing injustice to it. Uh, I used to do the same thing, like every now and then I'd have drive-through fast food. I don't do that anymore. Uh, for the most part, if I, if I want what I call a cheat meal, for the most part I usually cook it on myself because I know what I'm putting into my body. Um, I just limit the amount of junk food. There's just no point.
Speaker 3:If I'm supposed to be an elite athlete, it doesn't make sense to to fuel with garbage.
Speaker 3:It's like having the most expensive car in the world and then putting the cheapest gas, never changing the oil in it, never washing it, never doing any of the maintenance. It just doesn't make any sense why I have the best car and I kind of treat my body the same way. It's like if I want it to be a great vehicle and to perform for me, I have to treat it what it deserves and take care of it. And doing the massages, but I wish I didn't use to do um, taking the downtime. Like I'm a stickler about my sleeping cycle, I make sure that every night I'm in bed at 10 o'clock. I don't look in any artificial light. I'm doing it like making sure that I do everything possible to recover the best way, making sure I do sauna in the evening even if I don't want to. Trying to do ice baths first thing in the morning, conscious about how I do my explosive movements trying to do mobility and things of that nature are super important, just to make sure for me that I'm in the best state possible.
Speaker 1:That nature are super important, just to make sure for me that I'm in the best state possible. So, after a big win and this might be kind of like a crazy question, but after a big win, what is like your go-to meal, like what's something that you immediately think, okay, that's the dish I got to have today.
Speaker 3:So there's what I always want. So I'll like, first of all, all the fight week. Like I said, I'm just ve vegging out and if I'm not hanging out with my coaches, I'm just in my room looking at the food network and just scrolling on my phone through all the local food spots within that area and like researching. I'm like I'm gonna have this after the fight, I'm gonna have this after a fight, and like I plan out. It never happens that way, but like I make essentially a map of all the stops, of the places I'm going to eat, which, which with them. Like KFL, you can't do that right, because if you get too fat, you're going to cut weight again in eight more weeks. It'd be stupid to do that. So I definitely didn't do that this fight. But yeah, and then the other problem is we get all the fights so late. Like I was on the main card. I didn't get back into my hotel room till after midnight and then you shower, you get changed. We're talking almost 1am. Everywhere was closed, there was nowhere to eat. So I was like, well, man, what I want is I want a steak, a great steak, I want French fries and I want cheesecake. That's what I almost always want post-fight.
Speaker 3:But do I actually get all that? No, almost never happens. I'm like, okay, I will settle with a hamburger and French fries and good ice cream and just hope for that, and usually doesn't even happen. So it seems like for the most part I just have to settle with the idea of like waiting to the next day to go find something, depending on where I'm at. Like at the mohegan sun in connecticut. The mohegan sun's in the middle of nowhere and usually, like sunday morning or sunday, the great food spots aren't open. So we didn't have the option. We were flying out the morning so I would just have to wait till I got back home and then we'd go and go find the spot. But usually it's. I've just kind of settled like it's okay, you'll have good food at some point, you don't need to. But my go-to craving always, I always want. I always want red meat, I want a steak or a hamburger, I want French fries and I want cheesecake.
Speaker 1:I want french fries and I want cheesecakes. Right, yeah, I mean, I'm a big steak guy, you know. If you can't tell, I could go for a good steak any day of the week if I can get my hands on it, you know so one thing I wanted to know and one thing that.
Speaker 1:I've applauded you on your whole career, you know, ever since I became an MMA fan. One thing I've always liked about the way you fight is you've always been a very active fighter. So do you think it's going to be that hard for you to be able to fight every eight weeks? Because typically you know from what I've seen you try to fight at least twice a year.
Speaker 3:It seems like yeah, honestly, I was trying to fight more often than that. I was in every organization. I was begging for more fights, but the other girls didn't want to fight and so it was always made it difficult. My first year of fighting, I fought eight or nine times and I thought that that's what the tempo of fighting would always be, and then, as my career has gone on, it was just like slowing down, like wow, this isn't what I wanted, like I love being active and I always go back to training.
Speaker 3:If I fight Saturday night, I go back to training Monday morning. I'm usually in the weight room Sunday morning after the fight doing cardio, doing weight training, and then Monday back to once. All the gyms are open, back to normal training on Monday. So I've always stayed in shape all year round. So PFL is definitely a better fit because I was back to training Monday and I'm ready to go back into fight camp. It gives me a focal point as opposed to just kind of going in there and just training and just helping my other teammates. It's all of us growing together instead of just focusing on either one of them or just on nothing. Okay gotcha.
Speaker 2:So you're a role model to many young people that's getting in the mma. I know you certainly are to me. Uh, a lot of people would look up to you if they know anything about the mma game. So who's some people that you looked up to, maybe early in your career? I heard you mentioned BJ Penn earlier in the episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there are people that like. When it came to Forrest Griffin, he was somebody who I thought was cool in the sense that one of the first MMA fights that I saw it was two uneducated people and the post fight interview it was just to me a demonstration of what most people think street fighting or cage fighting is and what it shouldn't be. I was like, yeah, I don't think I actually like MMA, like this is the thing I want to. And then I finally saw people like Forrest Griffin and I saw people like Roger Huerta and BJ Penn. I was like, oh wait, these are intelligent people.
Speaker 3:These are sometimes college educated people that, additionally, also fight and have that commitment to it. This isn't just three street thugs that they threw into a cage. They're like, hey, we'll give you a beer after this if you're willing to fight. You know like this is. These are actual people that are technicians within the sport, that are athletes, professional athletes, that are doing this. Um, so I think those are some of the people that I looked up to, but, for women, the only person that you could was just chris cyber, and at that time when I was watching her, she didn't really speak english, so it was really just a matter of like okay, that's who I want to beat. Not much as a mentor or anybody that I looked up to as far as direction, as much as like. My goal was to beat Chris Cyborg down the road right.
Speaker 1:So one thing that I've just been really wanting to know what is the day in the life of Liz Karmouche like?
Speaker 3:um, it depends. If I am in fight camp, then typically it's waking up, it's meal prepping, uh, uh, getting all my laundry, cause I, I, if I train seven times in a day, I changed my clothes seven times in a day, so it's getting all the laundry planned out for the day. Getting the middle prep I have my dog, I take her on a walk for her to go out, and then it's getting to the gym and then I've got jujitsu right away at 10 AM, then I've got striking for mma with my coach fence and then it's usually either going to strength and conditioning or I'm going to um grappling with justin flores, and then each of those practices is about an hour, a little bit longer, and then it's come back to the same gym, the arena, do pro practice from 4 to 5 30, then do an hour of cardio, then I do the sauna in the evening, come back, do all the dishes from the meal prep, do all the laundry from the day and then repeat, recycle, do it all over again every day right.
Speaker 1:So one thing also that I wanted to ask. I know I asked about the military and how it compares with your competitive edge and stuff. How did the military help you with your discipline as far as being able to go into training, being able to go into the weight cuts and that kind of deal?
Speaker 3:Like I said, being a Marine meant that I had to work with nothing, right? In the Marine Corps you don't have the funding. So if they say that this job has to be completed and they give you no tools, no direction, you just have to figure it out on your own. And some days are like that in the fight camp, sometimes the coach is gone with four fighters for a fight and they had to leave on Monday to go start the fight week on Tuesday. So you're there and it's just you and like two other teammates and you guys are staring at each other like all right, no coach, what are we going to do today? Everybody looking at me like all right, I guess I have to come up with something. All right, cool. So you learn to, to push yourselves. Or sometimes you get teammates that the main coach isn't there, so they all dip and there's like one other teammate who's new and you're having to like hey, dude, I need you to like mimic, this because I have this fight. I need you to do this for me because I have this fight. Um, or you just have to.
Speaker 3:Nobody shows because they're sick and it the bug hit everybody and you're the only body left in the gym, right, so you just have to come up with workouts on your own, and that's all things that were very similar to my time in the Marine Corps. You just have to work with nothing, you know, but also having the discipline where, even if I didn't want to, I still had to go into work every day. Right, you don't want to show up Some days, you're just like man, I'd love to call into work. You don't get to call into the work when you're a Marine, you don't go to work, no matter what. And so it's the same thing for me.
Speaker 3:Like people ask like well, how, on the days when you don't want to, I'm like you just show up and you do it anyway, like there's no other choice. And that's because that's what I learned in the Marine Corps. You had no other choice. How I always treat it is there are no days off, there are no excuses for not being able to train because you don't have. Oh, it's a rainy day, it's a snowy day, it doesn't matter. Then put on a raincoat, put on a snow jacket, there are no excuses.
Speaker 2:There's always a way to find a way to train, to push yourselves, and I've applied that into every aspect of my maker gotcha um, so what I was gonna say is there any, uh, particular fighter that you really respect more which obviously you probably respect all of them but is there anybody that really earned your respect, that you was like dang? They really impressed me in the fight.
Speaker 3:In the fight. Ooh, I don't know that as much as they earned the respect in the fight, as much as, like when I faced Kana Watanabe, it was a very quick finish and that was somebody who could have made all the excuses in the world post fight to say, like when I faced juliana, every fight there was always an excuse on why it happened and that she should have won the fight right, even though I beat her three times. Uh, when I faced khan and she made no excuses, she just said, like that's the champion, she did good, a good job, we were able to talk to each other, she was respectful, she was courteous and that was something that I really appreciated was an opponent that never talked trash leading up to a fight, went in there, gave everything they had a respectful post-fight, gave dues where dues were owed and gave respect to the opponent. And that's something I always appreciated Somebody that, even though they lost, even though they want to cry their heads down, they're not happy, the result is still shake your hand, shake your coach's hand and kind of demonstrates me what a martial artist should be from every step of the fight.
Speaker 3:And she's somebody who, to this day, still has my respect. And when I see her, like I saw her at this last PFL cause, she's also part of the season and both of us are like super courtesy each other. We shake each other's hands, we like smile at each other. It's somebody who I look forward to the possibility of facing it again I suspect I will, but just because of the, the honor and respect that she showed me, I'll forever have honor and respect for her right.
Speaker 1:So, liz, I think that kind of does it for the episode. I'm so grateful that you were able to join us today and it just means a lot to me. You know you being the trailblazer for women's MMA and you being the trailblazer for the outside the out to go podcast, and I'm very grateful to have you here today. Jude, grateful to have you along, as always, and thank you so much, liz, for being here and good luck to you in the future with the PFL fights. Hopefully maybe we can talk again towards the end of the season.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and we appreciate your service. We appreciate you coming on. You're an absolute legend, not just in the women's game but in the game of mixed martial arts in general.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it was great to have you, just an absolute honor. And good luck in the rest of the pfl season. Hopefully we can catch up again sometime absolutely, thank you guys.
Speaker 3:Have a good night absolutely you as well.
