Taila Santos patiently awaited the finish of the PFL 4 main event as she waited to find out if she had done enough to earn the one seed in the PFL women’s flyweight playoffs. She would earn the two-seed and the former UFC title challenger, Santos, gets the honor to share the smartcage with Bellator champion, Liz Carmouche. Santos defeated Jena Bishop by split decision at Mohegan Sun to gain 9 points in the 2024 season and improve to 2-0. Santos in the eyes of many comes into the playoffs as the favorite due to her experience and still being only 30 years of age.
The Bellator champion, Liz Carmouche, had a thrilling ride in her first season with the PFL. At 40 years of age, the MMA veteran looks as fresh as ever. Carmouche had a tough path to the playoffs and if Kana Watanabe was able to survive the final 8 seconds she would have missed the playoffs all together as we learned she was down 20-18 on all three judges scorecards before earning a submission victory via armbar to end round 3. Carmouche is a badass that should never be overlooked and is going to be a threat to Santos because you can never count her out of a fight until you know it is over.
The ways to victory for both fighters will be available. For Taila, she will need to stick to the basics. She can’t try and force anything against the longtime veteran but she needs to not be on her back foot. Applying pressure will be the most important thing as she cannot fall behind early in rounds like she did with Jena Bishop. She was able to regain control of rounds and it lead to her winning this close split decision. Santos will need to clean up the mistakes if she expects to defeat someone with plenty of championship experience like Liz Carmouche.
For Liz Carmouche, she will need to stay patient. Santos is a very calculated and a difficult fighter to figure out. She will liekly need to drag this fight out while looking for opportunities to counter and bring this fight to the ground. Liz is no stranger to high pressure situations as a vetaran of the United States armed forces and champion in Bellator but she will need to be able to stay calm when the pressure of Santos is brought to her. I expect Carmouche to be a slight underdog when the odds are released. This will mean nothing to Carmouche as she looks to be business as usual and test herself against a hungry Taila Santos.
Prediction: Liz Carmouche keeps her championship chances alive with an upset victory over Taila Santos. Carmouche might only have one more shot at a championship at 40 years old and I think she gets the victory here. Santos will return in future seasons but this is the story of Liz Carmouche. I expect her to get the victory and face the winner of Dakota Ditcheva and Jena Bishop. For that article, please click on the link highlighted here.