If there was any question over whether or not upcoming UFC women’s bantamweight title challenger Miesha Tate still had a bone to pick with referee Kim Winslow, there wasn‘t after her recent interview on SiriusXM Fight Club.
“Cupcake” went off on a hateful tirade on the oft-criticized ref, clearly still salty over her TKO loss to Cat Zingano on the The Ultimate Fighter‘s Season 17 finale in April (transcription via MMA Fighting):
There’s no way in hell I’d let Kim Winslow referee another fight of mine. I think she’s horrible. I think some people who are not fighters and watch that fight and are like cringe ’cause they don’t have the fighter mentality and can never possibly understand it and that’s why they’re sitting in the stands. That’s why I’m the one out there fighting, and I can tell you right now I wasn’t done. …
I was so pissed when she stopped the fight. The first thing I did was look up at her and say, ‘Why did you stop the fight?’ And [Winslow] goes, ‘Because your face is a mess.’ I’m like, seriously? That’s why you stopped the fight? Your face is a mess and they still let you work. That’s what I felt like saying to her. I was like, are you serious right now?
That’s just a small excerpt of Tate’s rant, in which she also said that Winslow was like a “yippy Chihuahua” as she shouted commands excessively during the fight in question.
The former Strikeforce champion believes Winslow should not be officiating MMA fights at all, but if she has to, she should be relegated to amateur bouts because “she’s literally ruining people’s lives.”
In the second women’s fight in UFC history, Tate controlled Zingano with her takedowns and ground-and-pound for two rounds and appeared to be well on her way to a unanimous decision victory.
However, Zingano went for broke in the final frame, outstriking Tate on her feet and bloodying her with a series of knees.
Winslow called the fight off as Tate attempted another takedown, one of the primary reasons the 26-year-old believes the action should have continued.
After compiling a six-fight win streak between October 2009 and July 2011, Tate has lost two of her past three bouts, including one in which she lost her Strikeforce belt to Ronda Rousey in March of last year.
Nevertheless, Tate will have a chance to avenge her loss to Rousey—the current UFC women’s bantamweight champ—at UFC 166, which takes place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 28.
After Zingano suffered a knee injury in training, Tate was tapped as a last-minute replacement to coach opposite Rousey for season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter, the first season that features both male and female competitors.
Is Tate’s bashing of Winslow fair criticism of the controversial referee or is this just more sour grapes over a reasonable stoppage?
John Heinis is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA Editor for eDraft.com.
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