Juliana Velasquez: Liz Carmouche knows she didn’t win the Bellator belt – it was ‘given to her’ by ref Mike Beltran

Juliana Velasquez complained and appealed her Bellator championship loss to Liz Carmouche in April, but she still got nothing in return. In the end, the judo veteran will have to regain it inside the cage at Friday’s Bellator 289 in Uncasville, Conn., when she rematches Carmouche.

Velasquez suffered her first MMA loss when referee Mike Beltran decided he had seen enough at Bellator 278, awarding Carmouche the flyweight championship via TKO with just 13 seconds left on the clock in the fourth round. Referee veteran “Big” John McCarthy sided with Velasquez on the matter, calling it a premature stoppage, but the Hawaiian commission still denied the appeal.

“I really think Liz Carmouche’s win wasn’t definitive and she knows that,” Velasquez said on this week’s episode of Trocação Franca podcast. “That win was given to her after the referee’s mistake, a premature stoppage. Bellator even posted a video these days where you can clearly see she wasn’t even landing the elbow, it was the forearm, and in such a low angle there was no way she could hurt me. I knew there were only 10 seconds left. The referee is a human being and he can make mistakes, but this win was given to her and I’m anxious to get back what is mine.”

Velasquez said she has learned a lot that night. Not by losing her invincibility — she was a judo player before and had to dig deep plenty of times on the mats — but by the way Carmouche behaved inside and outside the cage.

“I’ve learned a little bit about Liz Carmouche and people like her,” Velasquez said. “I already know what to expect from her in this fight. I know she will complain a lot when she’s in a dangerous moment. She will find a reason to complain. I don’t think anyone has seen this, I never talked about it either, but when I had her against the cage, she was complaining that I was poking her in the eye the entire time, but I wasn’t. I śaw that side of her and know what to expect, and I’m hungrier than ever.

“I didn’t expect that [from her] regardless of the promotions she’s been before. She fought for the Strikeforce belt and couldn’t [get it]. She fought for the UFC belt and couldn’t [get it]. It was her opportunity in Bellator and she wasn’t going to [get it].”

In the end, Velasquez said she wasn’t surprised by Carmouche’s attempt to face another contender instead of running it back with her because, she said, “Have you ever seen a kid put a finger on the power plug and then do it again?”

“She won’t do it, right? [Carmouche] knows,” Velasquez said. “I never handpicked fights, especially when you have the belt. If you really are the best, you have to fight the best.”

Velasquez’s perfect MMA record is now ruined, but she’s out to “end this story once for all.”

“I want to show that this belt is mine and I’m the best in the division in there,” Velasquez said. “I mean no disrespect, nothing like that, but I’ll do my thing in there and show her I’m the best. If she wants to be the champion she’ll have to be way better than me, and I think that’s hard.”