Liz Carmouche Leaves the Octagon with Teeth Marks, but No UFC Belt

Liz Carmouche entered the UFC Octagon for the first time planning to upset Ronda Rousey and leave with her title, but instead teeth marks and bruising is what she was left with following her first-round submission loss.

Carmouche was unlucky not to walk away with the submission herself, as she took Rousey’s back looking for a standing rear-naked choke inside the opening two minutes, but was unable to finish off the move no matter how hard she tried.

“Neck cranks are always hard to pull off. If the person has a lot of heart, they can fight through it then like she did and she was successful,” Carmouche said. “I have teeth marks actually from getting on her mouth, thinking maybe I could just get her to tap by just knocking some teeth out, but it didn’t quite work out.”

Rousey was apologetic towards Carmouche at the post-fight press conference explaining what happened.

“She had a cross face, and I actually dislocated my jaw when I was a kid and so I have a weird injury there,” Rousey explained. “She went across and was pushing my mouth guard out, and her arm went across my teeth. I’m sorry, it wasn’t intentional at all dude.”

Despite losing her UFC debut, Carmouche who is the first openly gay UFC fighter, found some positives to take away from the night and was chuffed to be part of history.

“I take away from it that I gave her a run for her money and I had her there for a second. I’m honored just to be a part of the UFC and it’s monumental part of history, and to be apart of that, words just can’t explain.”

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