Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey’s deep personal animosity is one of the most bitter in all of MMA. The fact that their recent coaching stint on The Ultimate Fighter has done nothing to temper that feud will come as no surprise.
If anything, it’s made it worse.
Much of the attention, however, seems to be focused on UFC bantamweight champion Rousey, the breakout female MMA poster girl who has a mouth bigger than almost anyone in the sport.
We’ve seen her at media calls since filming on TUF ended, barely able to contain her animosity towards Tate and flipping her off at every opportunity. Tate, for her part, has appeared relatively sanguine.
The female bantamweight talked of her relationship with Rousey on the set of TUF during a recent Google+ hangout (h/t MMA Fighting).
I’ve had people I’ve worked with before that I didn’t get along with or whatever, but never to this extent. I don’t know what her reasoning was for it, but at one point she just flipped a switch and she just became this mega b—h… For the rest of the season, it was just horrible having to deal with her.
Rousey herself has intimated that she is likely to come off as “nuts” in the forthcoming season of TUF and that the entire experience was “emotionally taxing”. What’s more, it’s been suggested that Rousey will be out of the country while the show airs—although that probably has as much to do with her new role on The Expendables 3 movie as any expected fan backlash.
Due to contractual reasons, Tate didn’t expand on any specific details of Rousey’s behaviour on the show, which changed dramatically about a week into filming, according to Tate.
Tate believes it was because she didn’t allow Rousey to emotionally manipulate her after losing her Strikeforce championship to Rousey.
I’m not going to lie, I was jealous and I was like, ‘You know what? She’s this and that and didn’t deserve a title shot.’ That was an immature stance at that time in my life, but after the loss it forced me to grow up and be like ‘Hey, you know what? She did deserve that title shot. She won and she’s a talented athlete and look where she’s taken women’s MMA.’ That’s the reality of it. I just had to accept that and try to be appreciative so I can continue being a happy person that I would rather be.
I kind of let that be known and I think that she caught wind of it… I think when I walked in the door, we had a different kind of vibe.
Of course, this is an incredibly one-sided take on the story. Rousey has suggested that her antipathy towards Tate is much deeper than her opponent suggests, and stems from Tate’s boyfriend—UFC bantamweight Bryan Caraway.
Whatever the case, we’ll all be able to make up our own minds when the carefully edited season of TUF featuring the two female coaches airs on Sept. 4 on Fox Sports 1.
The two are set to fight for the UFC women’s bantamweight title at UFC 168 in December.
Khurram Aziz is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report. Follow me on Twitter: Follow @khurramaziz1981
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