Jena Bishop upsets Liz Carmouche to win PFL women's flyweight title
Jena Bishop is the new PFL women's flyweight champion. She beat Liz Carmouche by unanimous decision in the main event of PFL Chicago at Wintrust Arena on Friday, October 16, 2026, taking the vacant title. All three judges scored the fight 48-47 for Bishop, according to Sherdog and Cageside Press.
What happened in Chicago
Carmouche started far better. According to Cageside Press, she landed heavy ground-and-pound in the first round and nearly finished Bishop, who survived. Sherdog reported that its three unofficial scorers gave the round 10-8 to Carmouche, but none of the official judges did, and that proved decisive on the cards.
Bishop recovered and used her grappling to take control. Cageside Press described her taking the back and hunting a rear-naked choke in the third, and again in the fifth, when she took Carmouche down early and controlled her to the final bell. Carmouche survived to the end. Bishop was warned for an elbow to the back of the head in the second round, according to the same report.
After the result, Cageside Press quoted Bishop: "She made me cry again," a reference to Carmouche's comments about making her cry in training. PFL's own account on X posted that Bishop is the new women's flyweight world champion.
The background
This was a rematch. Carmouche stopped Bishop in round three of their title fight at PFL 9 in August 2025, and Sherdog reported that Bishop called that stoppage premature and vowed to avenge it.
Pugna MMA's data shows Bishop now at 12-3, after submission wins over Ariane Lipski da Silva in June and Borena Tsertsvadze in April. Carmouche falls to 26-9. She had beaten Viviane Araújo by submission in June. Bishop was ranked fourth in the PFL women's flyweight division in our database and Carmouche second, which made the outcome an upset. MMA Fighting and MMA Junkie both framed it that way, and MMA Junkie wrote that the oddsmakers were wrong.
What comes next
Bishop faced off in the cage with Dakota Ditcheva after the fight, as shown in a post from PFL. Ditcheva is 16-0, is ranked first in the division in our data, and knocked out Bishop in the first round at PFL 7 in August 2024. Her most recent bout was a decision win over Denise Kielholtz in July.
Cageside Press reported that a fight between Bishop and Ditcheva is expected in early 2027. PFL has not announced a date in the sources reviewed, so the matchup should be treated as expected, not booked. Nothing in the reports reviewed addressed Carmouche's next step.
Sources
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This article was generated with AI and may contain errors.