The rematch did not start in her favour. Carmouche, the former Bellator champion and 2025 PFL tournament winner who won their first meeting by third-round TKO last August, controlled the opening round strongly enough that media scorers had it as a dominant frame for her. Bishop weathered it and then made the fight her own. The IBJJF No-Gi world champion and ADCC veteran landed all four takedowns in the fight, controlled long stretches on the mat, and came within moments of finishing in the third round, when she took Carmouche’s back and locked in a rear-naked choke. Carmouche, as tough as anyone in the division, survived to the horn, but the round belonged to Bishop and so did the momentum. After five rounds, all three judges had it 48-47 for the challenger.
For Bishop, now 12-3 and 40 years old, it is the defining night of her career: a reversal of a knockout loss, a world title in a sport that came second to her grappling for years, and her name first in a new lineage. For Carmouche, now 26-9, it ends a four-fight winning streak and a run that made her the favourite on the poster. The division’s next chapter now forms around a new champion, with Dakota Ditcheva, the unbeaten star whose hand injury reshaped this title picture, an obvious name to watch once she is healthy.
The co-main event will be argued about longer than the main. Timur Khizriev, returning after nearly two years away while recovering from injuries sustained in an armed attack, beat Gabriel Braga by split decision, 29-28, 28-29 and 29-28, to move to 19-0 and keep his perfect record intact. The fight was close and contested throughout, Khizriev was credited with 131 landed strikes, and Braga, now 17-4, had plenty of support for the verdict going the other way: all three of Sherdog’s media scorers had Braga winning 29-28. For Khizriev, the return answered the most important question, that he can compete at this level again after a long and difficult recovery. Whether the decision answered the competitive one is less clear.
Sarvarjon Khamidov produced the main card’s cleanest finish, dropping Rafael do Nascimento with a short left hook and finishing with hammerfists at 1:49 of the first round to move to 18-1 and make a strong case for a bigger bantamweight assignment. Elsewhere, Gamid Khizriev stayed unbeaten at 6-0 by stopping Michael Boylan with elbows in the first round, Cobey Fehr choked out Rosario Romero in 58 seconds, Kevin Pease submitted Cássio Barão with a rear-naked choke, Emiliano Sordi stopped Abraham Bably in the second round, Shannon Clark finished Lucero Acosta with elbows in the third, and Oualy Tandia took a unanimous decision over J.P. Saint Louis.
The PFL came to Chicago to crown a champion and start a lineage. It left with a new titleholder who rewrote the result of the first fight, an unbeaten featherweight who kept his record and a debate about how, and a card that finished more often than it went to the judges. The belt has a first owner. The division now has a target.
