Photo by Alexandre Schneider /Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC
A lopsided 50-45 decision loss to Valentina Shevchenko hasn’t convinced Carmouche she can’t beat the champion.
On Saturday night at UFC Uruguay, Liz Carmouche got her second shot at UFC gold when she took on Valentina Shevchenko for the women’s flyweight title. She was a heavy underdog coming into the fight, so not a whole lot was expected of her. But most still expected more than they got — a plodding five round decision that saw Carmouche land just 18 significant strikes over 25 minutes.
Shevchenko cruised to a 50-45 victory on all three scorecards (watch the highlights), but even that clean sweep didn’t save her from questions regarding the entertainment value of the fight. So of course Carmouche got some of the same type of inquiries at the post fight press conference.
”I absolutely anticipated that she would be a lot more aggressive and less hesitant,” Carmouche explained when asked about the lack of action. “I think that because of the style that I was doing was throwing her off, but I thought that she’d be much more resilient in it, and be more aggressive off of that instead of being more cautious and hesitant.”
“I think that we both had a game plan, I don’t think that there’s blame to be had,” she added. “I think that I was throwing her off of her style. But I mean, to her I didn’t execute and get the win either. So I think it was both of our parts that negated our ability to do what either of us anticipated doing.”
While Liz was happy with her training and cardio and how prepared she was coming into the fight, she admitted there were things she could have done better.
”Absolutely I should have pushed the pace more,” she said. “There’s a lot I’ll have to go back on and look at the tape to see changes I want to do and things I want to fix. But I think I could have pushed it more to have a better chance at getting the win.”
Carmouche confirmed her goal was to work her way back up to another title shot and if it was against Shevchenko she’s relish the opportunity to prepare for the fight she got Saturday in Montevideo.
”After seeing her hesitance and her caution tonight and her not execute her usual game plan and not have that cutthroat killer instinct that everybody knows, but actually be hesitant?” Carmouche mused. “That’s not something we’ve seen her do before, so I’d absolutely do it again and do things differently and actually take that belt from her.”
What do you think, Maniacs?