Carmouche vs Bishop 2 preview: what changed since the KO

Fourteen months ago in Charlotte, Jena Bishop spent the second round of a tournament final on top of Liz Carmouche, hunting a submission. Two minutes and 56 seconds into the third, she was knocked out. On Friday they do it again, for the vacant PFL women's flyweight title, over five rounds at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.

PFL Chicago: Carmouche vs Bishop 2 is Friday, October 16. The main card starts at 7:30 p.m. ET (6:30 p.m. local) and the prelims at 5:30 p.m. ET; the full card and every broadcaster are in the viewing guide. Rematches are usually sold on the idea that something has changed. Here is what our round-by-round numbers from the first fight say, and what each of them has done since.

The first fight, round by round

The stats below are significant strikes landed, total strikes landed, takedowns and control time for each round of the 2025 final.

Round one belonged to Carmouche on volume, 47 total strikes to 21, and most of her significant work went to the head: nine head strikes to Bishop's two. Bishop's answer was the body. Ten of her 12 significant strikes in that round landed there, and 18 of her 25 for the fight did.

Round two is the one Bishop's corner will have watched on a loop. Carmouche took her down once, yet it was Bishop who held control, 1:58 of the round. She landed six strikes on the ground, and tried two submissions. On paper it is her best round of the fight, and arguably the only one she won clearly.

Then the third. Bishop landed one strike of 27 thrown, Carmouche scored a knockdown, and it was over before the round was three minutes old. Over the whole fight Bishop actually had more control time, 3:04 to 2:13. She just didn't have the last minute.

Bishop since: two submissions, both in round one

Bishop (11-3) has won both her fights since the loss, and neither got out of the first round. In April she submitted Borena Tsertsvadze at 2:21, in this same building, after landing 18 of 25 significant strikes and trying three submissions. In June, on a card in San Diego, she submitted Ariane Lipski da Silva at 4:08, out-landing her 33 to 7 on the way.

Those are not small numbers. Across the fights we track, Bishop averages 4.6 submission attempts per 15 minutes, and her grappling record outside MMA runs to 14 matches. She is a jiu-jitsu player who has learned to hit people first, and lately she has been doing both inside five minutes. Two of her three losses are stoppages, Dakota Ditcheva in the first round in 2024 and Charlotte. The third was a decision to Taila Santos.

She is 40. That would be a talking point if her opponent were not older.

Carmouche since: one fight, and a strange one

Photo: 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment "The Old Guard" / CC0

Carmouche (26-8) is 42 and has fought once since Charlotte, on the same June card as Bishop. She submitted Viviane Araujo at 2:07 of the second round, but she was being out-struck when she did it, 14 significant strikes to Araujo's 22.

Her PFL run since 2024 is 6-1: Juliana Velasquez on the cards, Kana Watanabe by third-round armbar, Ilara Joanne by first-round TKO, Elora Dana on the cards, Bishop by knockout and Araujo by submission. The loss was a decision to Taila Santos in the 2024 playoffs. Bishop lost to Santos that year too, and both of them have beaten Watanabe. On shared opponents there is nothing to separate them.

Where there is something to separate them is the career profile. Carmouche lands at 53 percent and avoids 64 percent of what comes back, numbers built over a decade of three- and five-round fights in the UFC and here. She is not a high-volume fighter, 2.45 significant strikes a minute, and she wins by being the more patient one. In the one fight that settles this argument, she was.

The pick

The case for Bishop is round two. If she can get on top again and stay there longer than two minutes, she has 25 minutes to find the finish she was hunting in Charlotte, against a woman two years older than her.

The case for Carmouche is everything else, including the fact that she has already solved this once, in a fight Bishop had found a way into. I keep coming back to Bishop's last 60 seconds of the first fight: one strike landed from 27 thrown. Whatever changed in that round, Bishop has had 14 months to fix it, and two first-round finishes do not tell us whether she has.

I think Bishop is better than she was. I think she still has to beat the version of Carmouche that knows exactly where the fight turned.

Prediction: Liz Carmouche by decision

Picks are open on the pick'em, and the result and round-by-round stats will land on the event page Friday night.