Liz Carmouche is looking to go 2-0 against Kana Watanabe.
Carmouche and Watanabe fought back in 2021 at Bellator 261 and it was the American winning by TKO in just 35 seconds. Since then, Carmouche went on to become the Bellator women’s flyweight champion, but the two will rematch in the regular season of the PFL tournament at PFL 4 on this Thursday.
It will be the second fight for Carmouche in the tournament, which is something she wanted to do after the Bellator and PFL merger.
“It was a bit of both, I definitely had the intrigue of the appeal of the PFL and getting the chance to hold a belt in another organization, that seemed super appealing. Then, getting $1 million, and when Bellator was bought out, I got the option to do PFL and it was a no-brainer,” Carmouche said on Just Scrap Radio on BJPENN.com.
Although Carmouche has already fought Watanabe before, she says she is treating this as a brand new fight. She isn’t looking back on those 35 seconds, as she expects a much tougher fight this time around.
“I don’t feel like I can use that as training footage in preparation, I have to look at the other fights, whether it’s a decision or she got a finish. I can’t use the fight we had because it was so brief and there isn’t enough to apply to this fight,” Carmouche said.
However, Liz Carmouche does have confidence she can finish Kana Watanabe again to secure herself in the playoffs.
“I’m hopeful it is a quick finish again, that I can knock her out. A KO instead of a TKO, but I have seen so much growth and evolution on her part since the last time we fought. She learned so much against me, so I do think this will go in the second or third round before I finish her,” Carmouche said.
If Carmouche does punch her ticket into the playoffs, she has confidence she will be able to win the entire thing to further secure her legacy.
