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Last weekend, Miesha Tate faced Jessica “Evil” Eye for the opportunity to face the winner of Ronda – Bethe at UFC 190 for the UFC women’s Bantamweight title, and in what was yet another impressive performance, she won the fight via unanimous decision. Miesha’s remarkable improvement in the striking department, and her clinches and takedowns proved to be the difference, after Jessica utilized her reach advantage and hard right hands to push Miesha onto the back foot in the first couple of minutes in the first round.
Similar to her last fight with Sara, Miesha took some punishment before showing her grit and determination to throw Jessica off her game. Miesha will now face the winner of Ronda Rousey and Bethe Correia at UFC 190 for the UFC women’s Bantamweight title. But before that can happen, my colleague Ratish Menon and I caught up with Miesha, in a Sportskeeda exclusive, to get her thoughts on Jessica, and who she picked to win in the UFC 190 main event.
Hunt for the UFC Bantamweight title and a trilogy with Ronda Rousey
Talking about the significance of her last fight and having the opportunity to become the number one contender yet again, Miesha said, “Every fight in your career is the most important fight, of course. But this one has a little bit more promise at the end at the end of the tunnel, a little bit more looking forward. It’s that you know what your next fight will be after your other fight, if you win. So, to know that, the UFC has been saying there’s never any guarantees, but from what I understand is that if I win the fight, that makes me the number one contender. I want that, and I’m working towards that.”
Talking about the women’s division and how it has grown in the past couple of years, Miesha said, “Well, it’s definitely growing, and they’re signing girls. A lot of people go, “Oh there’s not enough talent or depth in this division”, and I think that with time, we’ve proven those people wrong. So, yeah, there are a lot of tough girls, like Jessica Eye who I’m fighting; there’s the other one I know but not necessarily familiar with.”
Miesha also talked about improving her skills; she surprised a lot of people during her fight with Sara McMann back in January. Talking about going to the ground with Sara, Miesha said, “The game plan for Sara was to shut her takedowns down, and punish her after she tried to shoot. But her game plan wasn’t as much to wrestle as we had anticipated, but when she cracked me with that huge overhand right, and knocked me down and broke my orbital bone, that forced me to adjust as a fighter in the middle of the fight.
I thought, “Well, let’s change the game plan a little bit”, and that’s being a part of well rounded and well experienced mixed martial artist; it is to understand that you can never really plan that much for a fight. You can think you know, and you can try to strategize; I mean, a lot of times the game plan goes right out of the window in the first 15 seconds, when you have to make adjustments and changes. Luckily I was able to do that and I was able to do the necessary things to win that fight. I didn’t really get to implement the game plan; in the second round, I can remember – I think she tried to take me down and I think I swept her, went for a guillotine and swept her, and then got on top, and in the third round, I came forward with punches and forced to clinch, and she tried to toss me and tried to mount, and I reversed her and got on top. From there I felt really comfortable, so there was a part of game plan I got to implement, but there were also some very big adjustments I had to make to survive in the fight.”
Possible fight with Cris “Cyborg” Justino at catch weight
One of the hottest topics recently has been Miesha’s challenge to Cris “Cyborg” Justino about a catch weight fight at 140 lbs, and Cris had also expressed interest in taking up the fight. Talking about the possibility of the fight to materialize, Miesha stated, “I don’t know how, what’s the word for it, likely it is for that fight to happen. But somebody asked me if I would take the fight at 140 and I said yes. And I would; if I also think that Cyborg would fight me at 140, so, I have nothing but respect for her, and she has nothing but respect for me. But we happen to be in an industry where we fight each other. So if she could make 140 and UFC would let that fight on, and if I was getting paid enough to fight her, then okay, let’s do it. I think even having just the chance of upsetting Cyborg, who is such a dominant, dominant athlete is probably worth it for me. I think my stock would go up so much, and the chance of beating her is very exciting to me. So I would love the opportunity if it were to come my way, and I think outside of fighting Ronda Rousey that’s the fight I could look forward to.”
Miesha also expressed interest in fighting Cat Zingano – one of the two fighters to have defeated Miesha in the UFC. “Yeah, for sure, but first she has to get back in the win column. I think if there’s another win there, a win or two and I can get to fight her again. So, I don’t know, I haven’t heard much (from her) since she lost her fight. She’s taking time off, so I don’t know.”
Thoughts on the upcoming Ronda – Bethe fight, and the possibility of visiting India in the near future
Talking about the upcoming Ronda – Bethe title fight at UFC 190, Miesha spoke about who she thought would win. “I don’t think Bethe is ready for Ronda yet. I don’t think she has developed enough, I don’t think she has faced enough competition, so I think it’s too early in her career to be taking such a big leap, and for that competition, so I think Ronda’s going to win.”
Miesha also briefly discussed about her interest to become a full time analyst on FOX. Talking about a potential career, she said, “For sure, that’s what I’m really hoping to do. When I’m not able to fight any longer, and I’m not wanting to fight, I hope that I can continue working with FOX, because I think there needs to be a female presence up there on the table as an analyst, because martial arts is martial arts, and there’s not so much difference between the men and women. However, I have a unique perspective, with the fact that I’ve fought so many younger girls and in the areas that it is different, I can provide insights that guys just don’t have. For the things where there’s a little difference between men and women – the style match ups and the action, I follow it in depth and so, for me being up there and being able to provide the fans with the new insights that I have, I really enjoy that and I’m hoping that it’s going to be something that I will be doing for a long time to come.”
Talking about fighters who influenced her in the early stages of her career, Miesha said, “Well, to be honest, nobody really did. I think I was so oblivious to everyone’s opinion about anything, that I just did whatever I wanted to do. I didn’t care what anybody really thought; I didn’t look – it’s not that I didn’t want to look up to anyone, it’s just that I didn’t know if there was anyone for me to look up to because when I first started fighting, I first started wrestling. I was 15 when I started fighting; in 2005 – 06, when I was 19 years old, and there was no female famous mixed martial artist at that time. It wasn’t promoted, really, so it was hard for me to find anyone to look up to. I just did it because I wanted to compete, and then I slowly started finding out about other women who were fighting, potential opponents and things like that. So those were some girls I really looked up to; Marloes Coenen was one of the female fighters I found out about and I was just blown out of the water. She’s amazing, and when she fought Cyborg the first time, I was like, “Holy crap!” and I thought they stopped the fight too early. I thought she should’ve been given a little longer (to continue), but she was probably the first one – but that was again, as I said, after fighting for a couple of years. I didn’t care about what everyone else thought. I didn’t care if I was the only one doing it.”
Miesha also expressed her interest in coming to India, and talked about her love for Indian cuisines. “I would absolutely love to come to India. I love traveling, I love seeing other parts of the world. I love different cultures, so I think that would be such a cool opportunity. I love a lot of your food; I eat a lot of Indian food actually. The food is an extra motivation to go and I think it would be great.
And I just wanted to tell, I want to say thank you to everyone that supports us, who tunes in, who supports women’s MMA and who enjoys the sport, and I’m going to put on the best fight I can for everyone. So I hope you enjoy the fights.”
You can catch UFC 190 on 2nd August at 7:30 AM live on Sony SIX and Sony SIX HD, as Ronda Rousey defends her UFC women’s bantamweight title against Bethe Correia
