As a competitive soccer player in her youth in Okinawa, Japan, Liz Carmouche admits she wasn’t a fearless competitor.
“Before every game for five years, there were aggressive, carnivorous
butterflies in my stomach,” Carmouche told MMAjunkie.com. “It was like they were trying to eat me, and it
happened every time someone would even mention a game.”
Several years, a few continents and a Marines career removed from those
soccer exploits, the butterflies returned to Carmouche’s stomach in
March 2010. After just three months of training at a local San Diego
gym, Carmouche was making her professional mixed-martial-arts debut, at
the time mostly so she could say she tried it once.