Bryan Caraway isn’t the most popular fighter in the UFC. Granted, threatening (then allegedly committing, per a Bloody Elbow report quoting Cat Zingano) violence against women won’t help build a brand, but Caraway is nothing if not a poor dec…
Bryan Caraway isn’t the most popular fighter in the UFC. Granted, threatening (then allegedly committing, per a Bloody Elbow report quoting Cat Zingano) violence against women won’t help build a brand, but Caraway is nothing if not a poor decision-maker.
His girlfriend, Miesha Tate, though? She’s quite the hot commodity these days. In fact, she’s so hot she has one of her steads from The Ultimate Fighter 18 trying to woo her on YouTube.
Above, you can see Tim Gorman, the final male selected for Miesha Tate’s team (and the season’s 15th overall pick). Apparently, he is infatuated with his coach to the point where he is publicly calling out her boyfriend. Check out the four-minute, 30-second mark.
I think Miesha Tate’s a great girl…obviously, she’s a great-looking girl and I’d love to take her out on a date sometime. I guess, really, the only thing holding me back from taking Miesha Tate out on a date is her boyfriend, Bryan Caraway. He fights in the UFC at 135, which is my same weight class. I don’t want any money; I’ll fight for free. So Bryan Caraway, I want you. Your girlfriend’s on the line in this fight, buddy.
This comes as a bit of a surprise, given the fact that Gorman was critical of Tate in TUF 18‘s debut, saying: “I got picked by Miesha Tate. Is that her name? Is Miesha Tate her name? I don’t even know what her name is. So, really, I don’t even care that she picked me last. I don’t even know who she is.” Tate, however, is a former Strikeforce champion and owns notable wins over ZoilaGurgel and MarloesCoenen.
Caraway, in spite of his general lack of tact, etiquette or chivalry, is fairly accomplished in his own right. A veteran of The Ultimate Fighter 14, he defeated Marcus Brimage before losing to Diego Brandao. Since the show, he has racked up a respectable 3-1 record in the UFC.
In addition to being disrespectful in regard to Tate, it is also somewhat a shot at Caraway. Without the time to pull together a full staff, Caraway was the only assistant coach on Team Tate and, as such, would work closely with Gorman throughout his time on TUF.
Episode 2 of The Ultimate Fighter 18 is set to debut Wednesday night on Fox Sports 1. Feel free to check out our live blog and recap during and after!
Cat Zingano tuned in to watch the debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter season 18 with a heavy heart but with pride in her eyes.
She witnessed Ronda Rousey enter The Ultimate Fighter gym, followed by Miesha Tate. After some initial confusion, UFC presi…
Cat Zingano tuned in to watch the debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter season 18 with a heavy heart but with pride in her eyes.
She witnessed Ronda Rousey enter The Ultimate Fighter gym, followed by Miesha Tate. After some initial confusion, UFC president Dana White explained to Rousey that Zingano—who was supposed to coach the show—had blown out her knee. The injury forced the UFC to tab Tate as a replacement coach.
For Zingano, watching the show was like reliving a bad dream. She had to talk about this situation three months ago when it first happened, and then last night on television, it all unfolded again.
She had earned the right to coach opposite Rousey and then face her for the UFC women’s bantamweight title later this year. As disappointed as she was about missing out on the title shot, watching the first-ever women’s cast of the long-running reality show debut without her ended up being the hardest part of it all.
“Losing the opportunity to be on the show and have those cameras in my faces, that wasn’t that big of a loss for me, but the chance to impact people’s lives as a coach and just influence with my style and sharpen steel with steel as far as getting these fighters good or even better,” Zingano said on Thursday.
“I kind of removed myself from that position when I was told the position was gone. I wasn’t thinking about it too much, but when the show came on last night and I watched it, there were a few burns. Some things that I really feel like I would have enjoyed.
“It was bittersweet at a few points, but I’m really proud of everybody and I’m proud I got to be a part of it in some sense.”
As heartbreaking as it was to not be part of The Ultimate Fighter this season, Zingano is using this experience as motivation to work that much harder in physical therapy and rehab. She wants to get her knee back to full health so she can face the winner of Rousey vs. Tate next year.
Three months ago, a simple jump led Zingano to the hospital when a routine training day turned tragic.
She was doing her strength and conditioning program like she had done a thousand times before, and she happened to be jumping over tunnels, each about a foot high off the ground. During one jump, she landed hard on her knee and heard a loud pop. As she fell to the ground, she could feel the dream of coaching on The Ultimate Fighter and facing Rousey later this year slip away.
Zingano underwent surgery on her ACL, putting her out of action for the rest of 2013 and out as coach on The Ultimate Fighter this season.
Now with the healing process under way, she attends physical therapy every day with a new hunger to get back in the cage as soon as possible. Throughout her life, she has faced a million different obstacles—none of them easy.
Whether it was fighting, wrestling or motherhood, Zingano has stood up to every tough test thrown her way. She’s been conditioned throughout her entire life to never back down from a challenge, and the knee injury was just the latest in a series of hurdles she had to overcome.
“I have this urgency to make it all worth it when the time comes,” Zingano said. “I’m going to come back so much stronger and so much harder because throughout my life with wrestling, with school, with any kind of adversity people would tell me ‘Cat, you can’t’ or ‘Cat you won’t’ and those are the things that I succeeded in the best.
“My knee is essentially sitting here telling me I can’t and I won’t on all these different occasions and I just can’t wait to prove to myself and in honor of all of these things that I’m applying to myself right now in physical therapy and the things that I’m able to put myself through now that at the end of all of this, I need to show myself all the hard days, all the ups and downs, and all the days that this has really, really sucked and days that have been awesome are all for something. They’re all for me to come back and appreciate the sport even more.”
When she returns to action, she may have a formidable test standing in front of her in the form of Rousey, or it could be a rematch against Tate, whom she has already beaten. It doesn’t matter much to Zingano whom she faces because neither fighter will be as intimidating as what she faced just a few days ago during her rehabilitation.
Like a boxer who breaks his hand and has to punch the heavy bag or a rider tossed off a horse forced to climb back onto the saddle, she faced her biggest fear when she took a small jump on her surgically repaired knee for the first time.
She wasn’t leaping over a tall building in a single bound or even the foot-high tunnels that she was jumping over when the knee injury occurred. No, this was literally just a one-inch jump off the ground, but for the first time in months, she was landing on the knee that cost her a title fight and a shot at coaching The Ultimate Fighter.
“I had to do this little mental countdown in my head like ‘you can do it, just do it’ and I had my physical therapist right there in front of the mirror and I took my first jump,” Zingano said. “When I landed I immediately had this creepy little flashback and this little groan and it scared the crap out of me, but I only gave myself about two more seconds until I went into the next one and then the next one and now I’ve had three more sessions where I’m jumping forward on agility ladders.
“The physical progress is there, the mental progress is there, and I’m really happy that yes, I felt the scare and that kind of trauma that has come from the injury, but I’m fighting through it and I’m gaining some mental toughness.”
When she landed and realized that her knee was holding up and things would only get better, Zingano she help but let her joy be heard.
“I giggled like a little school girl,” she said.
She will spend the next four months in rehabilitation until her knee gets back to full strength so she can return to training and eventually fighting. She can’t promise she’ll watch every episode of The Ultimate Fighter this season given her time commitments to physical therapy and her own child’s recreational activities, but when she does tune in, it’s going to be with one thing in mind—scouting the competition.
“I feel like watching them coach and the way they’ll coach their fighters and the way they will interact with each other, it’s almost like I feel like a big setup for me to learn a lot about these opponents and learn a lot about their mental state, and their mental capabilities,” Zingano said. “I find it very motivating.
“I think all of this is going to benefit me in the long run. It’s telling me these are things that I can’t do, and all I can do is sit back and watch and dream about when it’s my turn. Nothing in my life has ever come easy.”
Getting back from major knee surgery won’t be easy either, but Zingano knows if anyone can get through it and come back stronger, she’s the person to do it.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report, and all quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
Ronda Rousey is already blaming the editing booth for how she will be portrayed on The Ultimate Fighter Season 18, but according to Miesha Tate, the only person Rousey should be pointing fingers at is herself.
The top women’s bantamweight contend…
Ronda Rousey is already blaming the editing booth for how she will be portrayed on The Ultimate Fighter Season 18, but according to Miesha Tate, the only person Rousey should be pointing fingers at is herself.
The top women’s bantamweight contender recently made a guest appearance on Sports Illustrated Now to dish some dirt on the UFC champ and a potential falling out with fans from the show:
I think people are finally seeing her true colors a little bit. This is a six-week thing. It’s not like you can really hide who you are over a six-week course. The cameras are always there. I think people are finally starting to realize exactly why I haven’t been able to get along with her and what the problem has been, and I think it’s hilarious that she’s already making up excuses for how she behaved and saying that I ‘emotionally manipulated’ her and all this stuff. She actually already seems embarrassed, like looking back on it, knowing people are going to see the truth.
Rousey has seemed rather agitated in the weeks leading up to the show, which aired for the first time on Wednesday night.
In an interview with USA Today, she described the show as an emotional roller coaster that will likely give fans an inaccurate perception of who she really is as a person. She even went as far as saying the UFC couldn’t pay her $10 million to agree to do it all over again.
If it wasn’t for her, there still wouldn’t even be women fighting in the UFC. She is credited for bringing the much-needed attention to elevate women’s MMA in the public eye. Initially, UFC president Dana White even referred to it as “the Ronda Rousey show” during an interview with MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani.
As time passes, the ladies are slowly moving away from the Rousey crutch and making their own names.
There is a certain star quality about Tate, who smiles for the cameras and says all the right things. Rousey’s mean-mugging, “I don’t give a damn” attitude isn’t for everyone.
Tate is likely right in thinking that some will probably find their initial perception of Rousey way off by the conclusion of this season of TUF. Like her former training buddies Nick and Nate Diaz, Rousey could soon become the fighter people love to hate.
It still won’t change the fact that she is the best in the world when the cage door closes.
A change in nights and a change in networks will mean some growing pains for the UFC as they help launch Fox Sports 1 with fight programming leading the charge for the all-sports destination.
While the initial launch of Fox Sports 1, with UFC Fight Nig…
A change in nights and a change in networks will mean some growing pains for the UFC as they help launch Fox Sports 1 with fight programming leading the charge for the all-sports destination.
While the initial launch of Fox Sports 1, with UFC Fight Night 26 leading the way, brought in an average of 1.78 million viewers over the broadcast, the last two efforts after shifting to Wednesday nights have seen significant decreases in viewership.
Last week’s UFC Fight Night 27, headlined by welterweights Carlos Condit and Martin Kampmann, brought in 824,000 viewers over the course of the broadcast. Now it has to be noted that the main event, specifically the final 15 minutes, peaked with just over 1 million viewers as Condit knocked out Kampmann in the fourth round.
This week’s offering, UFC Fight Night 28 that originated from Brazil, ended with an even more significant drop in viewership as the broadcast generated an average of 539,000 viewers for the three-hour show (All ratings information provided by Nielsen via email on Thursday).
The viewership mark is the lowest of the three shows the UFC has placed on Fox Sports 1 thus far.
As for The Ultimate Fighter, which also debuted on Wednesday night with coaches Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate—the two-hour long broadcast brought in an average of 762,000 viewers.
The debut marks a drastic drop for the reality show compared to season 17 that debuted on FX with coaches Jon Jones and ChaelSonnen that pulled in 1.51 million viewers for its debut.
The move to Fox Sports 1 was expected to see a drop in overall viewership numbers given the nature of television, and the ability for fans to find the new network on their cable or satellite provider, as well as the change in nights once again.
The Ultimate Fighter 17 was on Tuesday nights after seasons 15 and 16 moved to Friday nights on FX. The show is now back on Wednesday nights, which is the same as when the UFC was in a partnership with Spike TV, but being on a new channel and network will likely see growth take time.
The Ultimate Fighter 17 averaged 1.32 million viewers overall on FX last season.
The Ultimate Fighter remains at 10 p.m. ET each Wednesday night, while the next UFC Fight Night will take place on October 9, once again from Brazil, with welterweights Demian Maia and Jake Shields heading up the card in the main event.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report
The Ultimate Fighter settles in for its 18th season with new coaches Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate on Wednesday evening at 10 p.m. ET.
The storied program will make the switch to its new home, Fox Sports 1. The premiere episode will feature 32 UFC hopef…
The Ultimate Fighter settles in for its 18th season with new coaches Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate on Wednesday evening at 10 p.m. ET.
The storied program will make the switch to its new home, Fox Sports 1. The premiere episode will feature 32 UFC hopefuls, 16 male bantamweights and 16 female bantamweights, squaring off and trying to make it into the house.
Stay tuned for live coverage of The Ultimate Fighter 18 as the highly anticipated season gets underway. It will be a fight-filled first episode that you won’t want to miss.
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&rsquo…
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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