CEITEDMOFO
Banned
Despite losing to Ronda Rousey twice, Miesha Tate’s spirit has not been broken. ‘Cupcake’ says she would like to go ‘one more time’ with her biggest rival.
‘Rowdy’ almost broke Tate’s arm with an armbar in 2012, and the 30-year-old almost suffered a similar fate at UFC 168, which saw Rousey apply the same signature submission in the third round.
Rousey, 29, has been absent from competition for a year and will make her return to the Octagon on Dec. 30. The Californian was violently dethroned by Holly Holm last year but will return against newly-crowned women’s bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes at UFC 207.
Recently, though, in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Rousey hinted at retirement in the near-future.
"I'm wrapping it up. This is definitely one of my last fights. So everyone better watch. The show isn't going to be around forever," Rousey said on Tuesday.
Tate, who went on to submit Holm at UFC 196 but lost the belt to Nunes in July, isn’t surprised by Rousey’s calls for retirement but believes their paths will eventually cross again.
"I know she's talked about retirement and I don't know why everyone is so surprised about that," Tate said at a recent media scrum in New York (h/t Dave Doyle of MMA Fighting). "I feel like she was saying that before she lost to Holly, she was coming to a close. For me, I just want to fight her one more time, and granted that she gets the job done, and wants to continue fighting. I would love to go one more time, so hopefully it's not too much of a race against the clock and I will be watching that fight with great interest."
Tate will feature on the main card of UFC 205 on Nov. 12, which will see her take on Raquel Pennington at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Rousey, who was once hyped as the Mike Tyson of women’s MMA, will look to rebound against Nunes in a bantamweight championship tilt at UFC 207. The pay-per-view takes place on Dec. 30 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
