Tate unsure if Rousey can return to old dominant form
Miesha Tate waits for the start of of her bantamweight fight against Sara McMann during UFC 183 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on January 31, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tate won the fight by majority decision. Steve Marcus/Getty Images/AFP
For a time, Miesha Tate versus Ronda Rousey was the premier rivalry in mixed martial arts, with the two squaring off twice and the latter coming victorious in two occasions.
And even outside the Octagon, Tate can’t help to throw jabs at her rival.
After winning the UFC women’s bantamweight title from Holly Holm, the same person to hand Rousey her first defeat, Tate doubts if the once proud champion can return to her dominant self.
Tate talked to Jay Mohr Sports about the former champion and even labeled Rousey as a “broken woman.”
“I don’t know if she’ll ever come back the same,” Tate said, as MMAFighting.com wrote based on Jay Mohr Sports. “But I have proven that I can come back from adversity and I do come back and I will come back.”
Tate is on a five-fight win streak with her last defeat coming off the hands of Rousey in April 2014 in UFC 168.
“I have the strongest mindset of anybody in there. I don’t know where Ronda is with her mindset, but I have to wonder. Is she ever going to come back the same.”
Rousey was the subject of one of the greatest upsets in UFC history when Holm knocked her out clean with a head kick in the second round at UFC 193’s main event.
Holm, a former champion boxer, got Rousey to play her style and it proved costly for Rowdy who herself is not the greatest striker in women’s MMA.
“I just saw how Ronda got demolished with clean striking,” Tate said. “I think that I’ve improved so much and I’ve showed that in this fight with Holly.”
