MMA fighter Liz Carmouche, long a San Diegan, packed up and moved to Florida. She’s back for a PFL bout

Liz Carmouche is a tough, well-regarded professional mixed martial arts fighter, best known as the woman who battled Ronda Rousey in the UFC’s first-ever women’s MMA fight in 2013.

But a couple of years ago, she tapped out against an ongoing opponent she had battled for years: San Diego’s high cost of living. After being a resident of America’s Finest City for more than 20 years, Carmouche decided to relocate her family, eventually settling in Orlando, Florida.

The reason why, she told Times of San Diego, was that she and her wife Braelyn, a longtime horse trainer and rescuer, had a desire to own land for both business and personal reasons.

“She rides horses and it was just getting too expensive to try and even replicate even a small version of that San Diego,” Carmouche explained. “And when I fought in Orlando, she really liked the energy and how it felt so similar to San Diego.”

“She was born and raised in San Diego, she lived there her whole life, and she really liked Florida,” Carmouche said of her wife. “We were able to find 10 acres in Florida for a fraction of the cost if we had tried something like that in San Diego, so it just seemed like a no brainer.”

Carmouche hasn’t totally abandoned America’s Finest City, however. She still comes back occasionally when training for fights, and her wife, as a native, also still has ties to the city.

Carmouche actually will be back in San Diego on a business trip later this month: she’s one half of the co-main event for “PFL San Diego: McKee vs. Isbulaev,” an MMA card taking place Saturday at Pechanga Arena. The headliners are Long Beach native AJ McKee and undefeated Russian prospect Salamat Isbulaev.

Carmouche, 42, will be taking on Brazilian fighter Viviane Araújo, 39, in a three-round flyweight (125 lb.) matchup on the 10-fight PFL card. It’ll be only the second time that Carmouche has competed professionally in San Diego during her 16-year career.

PFL, which stands for Professional Fighters League, is a smaller competitor to the UFC, the organization that made Carmouche famous and to which she was signed for six years before being released in 2019.

Although both she and Araújo both were briefly in the UFC at the same time right before the end of Carmouche’s tenure, the two never crossed paths, as Araújo was still new and unranked and Carmouche was already a well-established veteran.

“She really wasn’t on my radar while I was in the UFC,” Carmouche admitted. “I was looking at the top five (fighters in the women’s flyweight division) at the time and she wasn’t quite there yet.”

Araújo, who was signed by the PFL last year after her own release from the UFC, comes into the fight with a 14-7 record and has alternated wins and losses in her last six fights.

“(I’m) certainly more familiar with her now and her aggressive striking nature,” Carmouche said. “She’s a fighter that constantly pushes the tempo and those are the type of fighters I like, because I feel like we bring it and I’m gonna match their tempo.”

“I don’t want to be with the opponents that just try to stick and jab and run away, but ones that are going to be there to give everything they have and duke it out and put on an exciting match for everybody to watch,” she added.

Carmouche, who has a 25-8 record, is on a three-fight win streak and has had her hand raised in 12 of the 13 bouts she’s fought since leaving the UFC.

During the two decades she spent as a San Diegan, she fought just once on home soil, a 2023 match against friend and former training partner Ilima-Lei Macfarlane. Carmouche said that there are both benefits and drawbacks to San Diegans having home fights, with the negatives mostly being financial in nature.

“I would say that probably the biggest drawback to being (on a fight card) in San Diego is the money. They take the highest tax bracket out because we’re independent contractors. So we lose a huge chunk of our fight money.”

“Our medical costs are absolutely through the roof: we’re talking thousands of dollars to be medically cleared to be allowed to fight. And then our fighters’ licenses are hundreds of dollars. So, I would say it’s very few people that fight in California that walk away making any money whatsoever. So, that sucks. That’s a huge, huge disappointment.”

“But at the same time, it’s so great to go back to a place that you’re familiar with,” she added. “I can go to gyms and go get extra training partners that (I) train with normally. I have the convenience of having great coaches that are accessible there, the wonderful weather, the great food post-fight.”

She also explained that something as simple as familiarity with the local grocery stores and training centers is a plus.

“There’s often a stressor when you get to a new city to train when you don’t know what the gym experience is going to be like, if they’re going to have the equipment that you utilize, if they’re going to have saunas, if they’re going to have hot tubs, ice baths or anything like that,” she explained. “And I know the whole set up in San Diego, so the weight cut, the recovery and the training is smooth sailing, being in a place I’m super familiar with and in a city that I love so much.”

Updated 11:10 a.m. June 26, 2026