Bethe Correia should receive high marks in the effort department.
The fiery Brazilian turned her dreams of a title shot into a showdown with phenom Ronda Rousey by tireless campaigning behind the belief she would be the one to finally dethrone the queen of the UFC’s women’s bantamweight division. While all that chatter went up in smoke in quick fashion when the two squared off at UFC 190 in Rio de Janeiro and Correia became another quick-notes addition to Rousey’s resume, that hasn’t stopped her from wanting to keep her high-profile status intact.
First came her call for an immediate rematch with Rousey that sent shoulder shrugs and head scratches throughout the UFC community. The UFC has been known to throw out a surprise here and there in the run-it-back category, but for Correia to end up face down on the canvas after a furious 34-second beating and then make a play for another opportunity drifted out into the realm of the absurd.
Once the dominant champion was officially slated to face Holly Holm at UFC 195 at the beginning of 2016, the hard-charging striker needed to set her sights on another target. And Correia wasted zero time calling out fellow former title challenger Miesha Tate during her interview with Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour on MMAFighting.com:
[Tate] mocked me when I lost because she thought she would be fighting Ronda, so I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to mock her back. She called me rookie, but always wanted to fight me, campaigned on Twitter in the past. Who wants to fight a rookie? It would be terrible to get beat up by a rookie.
Thus far, Correia’s call for action has fallen on deaf ears, as Tate has avoided her request for a future matchup. Granted, Cupcake is currently filming a movie and has been on set, so Correia’s call-out could have missed her, but Tate has never been one to drift too far from social media. And when Tate didn’t answer on the first knock, Correia showed she is anything if not persistent by sending out the signal again:
Although Tate hasn’t officially responded to Correia’s request to meet inside the Octagon, the former Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion did show interest in the fight earlier in the year.
It will be interesting to see which direction Tate decides to move following her being passed over for the title shot she was told she was getting, and perhaps a scrap with Correia may be the route she sees best to make her second shot at UFC gold come to fruition.
Duane Finley is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.
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