Miesha Tate: Bethe Correia ‘got what was coming to her’ at UFC 190

At least on the promotional side, few fighters have ever attacked Ronda Rousey quite like Bethe Correia did before UFC 190. Correia’s infamous ‘suicide‘ remark set a tone that stretched well into fight week, and her constant trash talk against the UFC’s women’s bantamweight champion became a driving narrative of the pay-per-view.

Of course, all of that chatter culminated in just 34 seconds of actual fight time. As she’s wont to do, Rousey made Correia pay for her words, knocking the Brazilian out cold in front of her countrymen in Rio de Janeiro with one of the most visceral finishes we’ve seen from the division in some time.

And Rousey’s likely next challenger, Miesha Tate, wasn’t surprised to see how it all played out.

“Bethe is a really hard person for me to read, and I don’t know if partially it was because of the language barrier, but I didn’t really understand her tactics of wanting to attack Ronda so much,” Tate said Tuesday on The MMA Hour. “If there’s any time where I felt, actually, kind of bad for Ronda, like kind of sympathized with her, it was in this fight, because I really thought that Bethe overstepped some personal boundaries that she just shouldn’t.”

Tate has faced Rousey twice before, and while plenty of animosity still lingers between the two sides, Tate has never made things as personal as Correia did when she involved the suicide of Rousey’s father in the promotion of the fight, regardless of whether it was a deliberate act on Correia’s part or not.

“Ronda and I are probably never going to get along, we’re probably never going to be friends necessarily, but there’s a certain amount of respect that I think [fighters] should have for each other,” Tate said. “As fighters, if nothing more, have that amount of respect for each other. No matter how much you dislike someone, there are personal lines you just don’t cross. I think Bethe did that, and so I think she got what was coming to her.”

Rousey’s crushing knockout of Correia will now go down as an iconic moment in the young champion’s career. Rather than relying on her Olympic judo, Rousey tested Correia at the Brazilian’s own game, swarming her with punches before face-planting Correia on the mat with a right hand.

After talking such a big game, the performance from Correia left Tate unimpressed, to say the least.

“I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just trying to be honest,” Tate said. “I really don’t think that she is that good yet. I think she really was more full of herself than anything else, and she was really trying to hype herself. I give her all the credit in the world for really trying to get her head in the game. I think she had every intention of going out there and winning, and I think she really believed it. But I think, like I said, she was just treading in too deep of water and was just in over her head.

“Screaming at Ronda and acting like that, acting kind of childish and a little bit arrogant, it wasn’t going to help. Like, ‘this girl is really, really asking for it. It’s going to be a painful night for her.'”

At least on the promotional side, few fighters have ever attacked Ronda Rousey quite like Bethe Correia did before UFC 190. Correia’s infamous ‘suicide‘ remark set a tone that stretched well into fight week, and her constant trash talk against the UFC’s women’s bantamweight champion became a driving narrative of the pay-per-view.

Of course, all of that chatter culminated in just 34 seconds of actual fight time. As she’s wont to do, Rousey made Correia pay for her words, knocking the Brazilian out cold in front of her countrymen in Rio de Janeiro with one of the most visceral finishes we’ve seen from the division in some time.

And Rousey’s likely next challenger, Miesha Tate, wasn’t surprised to see how it all played out.

“Bethe is a really hard person for me to read, and I don’t know if partially it was because of the language barrier, but I didn’t really understand her tactics of wanting to attack Ronda so much,” Tate said Tuesday on The MMA Hour. “If there’s any time where I felt, actually, kind of bad for Ronda, like kind of sympathized with her, it was in this fight, because I really thought that Bethe overstepped some personal boundaries that she just shouldn’t.”

Tate has faced Rousey twice before, and while plenty of animosity still lingers between the two sides, Tate has never made things as personal as Correia did when she involved the suicide of Rousey’s father in the promotion of the fight, regardless of whether it was a deliberate act on Correia’s part or not.

“Ronda and I are probably never going to get along, we’re probably never going to be friends necessarily, but there’s a certain amount of respect that I think [fighters] should have for each other,” Tate said. “As fighters, if nothing more, have that amount of respect for each other. No matter how much you dislike someone, there are personal lines you just don’t cross. I think Bethe did that, and so I think she got what was coming to her.”

Rousey’s crushing knockout of Correia will now go down as an iconic moment in the young champion’s career. Rather than relying on her Olympic judo, Rousey tested Correia at the Brazilian’s own game, swarming her with punches before face-planting Correia on the mat with a right hand.

After talking such a big game, the performance from Correia left Tate unimpressed, to say the least.

“I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just trying to be honest,” Tate said. “I really don’t think that she is that good yet. I think she really was more full of herself than anything else, and she was really trying to hype herself. I give her all the credit in the world for really trying to get her head in the game. I think she had every intention of going out there and winning, and I think she really believed it. But I think, like I said, she was just treading in too deep of water and was just in over her head.

“Screaming at Ronda and acting like that, acting kind of childish and a little bit arrogant, it wasn’t going to help. Like, ‘this girl is really, really asking for it. It’s going to be a painful night for her.'”