Former Strikeforce champion Miesha Tate isn’t concerned about her haters, and she’s making no apologies for her surprise title shot against Ronda Rousey.
Despite losing her UFC debut, an injury to Cat Zingano gave Tate her shot at Rousey, along with a coaching role on The Ultimate Fighter.
And as “Cupcake” Tate tells MMA Junkie, she feels she deserved to replace Zingano, despite losing to her just a handful of weeks ago by technical knockout in what she called a controversial stoppage from referee Kim Winslow:
“People, hate me if you want to, but the fighter in me says I wasn’t finished,” Tate told MMAjunkie.com Radio. “I would have honestly rather the referee let it go and have her knock me out if that’s what was destined to be.”
“I did not expect this by any means after the loss to Cat, but I got it,” she said. “I get to fight Ronda again. Everyone knows that I want that. Everyone knows that we don’t like each other, and I think that makes for more interesting TV. It just feels right.”
During their three-round bout in The Ultimate Fighter 17 Finale co-main event from April, a brutal TKO defeat temporarily halted Tate’s title hopes, as Zingano stunned her with knees to the face followed by a flurry of hard punches.
But as the replay later showed, the first blow looked to be potentially illegal, as Tate’s right hand was touching the canvas when Zingano‘s first knee hit—a violation of MMA‘s three-point contact rule against kneeing or kicking the head of a grounded opponent.
However, the sequence was debatable, along with the three-point contact rule commonly being seen by many MMA fans as a crafty way for wrestler-type fighters to shoot for takedowns while safely defending themselves if unsuccessful.
Regardless of the fight result, Zingano‘s torn anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus will sideline her for months to come as she recovers from surgery.
According to Yahoo Sports, UFC president Dana White has promised Zingano a title shot against the winner of Rousey vs. Tate.
But Tate isn’t the only one who thought that she deserved the next shot at Rousey‘s title, with fellow former Strikeforce champion Sarah Kaufman also claiming, via Twitter, that she “would’ve liked the call” to coach TUF 18‘s co-ed bantamweight season.
McKinley Noble is an MMA conspiracy theorist. His work has appeared in NVision, PC World, Macworld, GamePro, 1UP, MMA Mania and The L.A. Times.
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