Miesha Tate knows that as the new UFC women’s bantamweight champion, a third match-up with her longtime rival and former champion Ronda Rousey is most likely an inevitability. However, after submitting Holly Holm in the co-main event of March 5’s UFC 196, Tate is looking to stay active, and she’s not exactly sure Rousey has
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Miesha Tate knows that as the new UFC women’s bantamweight champion, a third match-up with her longtime rival and former champion Ronda Rousey is most likely an inevitability.
However, after submitting Holly Holm in the co-main event of March 5’s UFC 196, Tate is looking to stay active, and she’s not exactly sure Rousey has the same plan based on her devastating knockout loss to Holm last November.
Speaking during a media scrum in Brisbane, Australia, for this weekend’s UFC Fight Night 85, Tate revealed that she would rather fight at least one more time before Rousey conceivably returns in October or November, and it may even be as soon as July’s blockbuster UFC 200 (quotes via FOX Sports):
“That is a long time to wait. I have had eight months off before. Ideally I want to fight before then. I have been tossing around the idea if possible of fighting at UFC 200. I don’t know what the UFC has in mind for that. It may not be realistic.”
As for just whom ‘Cupcake’ might face next, she said she’s already been targeted by the entire top half of the division, and that understandably includes a request for a rematch from Holm. But with top-ranked contenders like Amanda Nunes and a returning Cat Zingano, who toppled Tate via TKO in their first respective UFC bout in April 2013, the next women’s 135-pound title fight is still very much unknown.
No matter whom it is, however, Tate said she is ready and will stay ready:
“I have been called out by everyone who is in the top six. The champion should take on whoever they say is next and whoever has earned that position. I don’t really care. They are all gunning for me and are all dangerous. My job as a champion is to stay active. I don’t want to be the one to say who fights who. I don’t want to be fixated on one person.”
Tate seems to be carrying the mindset of a true champion; one that knows her division is suddenly wide-open after being dominated for so long by a former champion who may or may not be motivated to even participate in one more UFC fight.
And even though she may not be considered the true champ by some until she finally defeats Rousey, the fact is right now it’s Tate who is motivated to take on any and all top-ranked female bantamweights in the world.
You can watch her full interview courtesy of Submission Radio right here:
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