Miesha Tate is back in the UFC and is ready to settle some old scores.
After a five-year layoff, Miesha Tate is ready to continue her MMA career and is already making call-outs. Tate made her return in a big way with a TKO victory over Marion Reneau at UFC on ESPN 26. Tate looked better than ever and is ready to make her way up the rankings and challenge for the title. But first, she wants to get a little payback.
Tate is looking for a fight with former TUF protégé Raquel Pennington. Tate was Pennington’s coach on season 18 of The Ultimate Fighter. The two were close but still accepted a fight against each other in 2016. Pennington walked away the victor in that one, and Tate walked away from the sport. Now, Tate wants that one back.
“So this was trippin’ me out when I was thinking about it,” Tate told Ryan McKinnell of SiriusXM. “You know, November’s a good month…and then, I was like, ‘Wait a minute.’ November, Madison Square Garden. It would be exactly five years, same place, same month after my retirement. And then, it got me thinking. This was not an idea before because I hadn’t put a lot of thought past Saturday. I was like, ‘What if I could fight Raquel [Pennington] there? Because that’s where I left off?”
Scheduling Complications Could Prevent Tate’s Dream Scenario
The landscape of MMA and sports, in general, has changed dramatically since the first time these two fought. Tate recognizes this but is still hopeful. The UFC has not held an event in New York since 2019. The major home base for the promotion since the onset of the coronavirus has been Las Vegas but now they are beginning to travel more.
“Now granted, I do want to point out she does have a fight at the end of September, so it’s very unlikely,” Tate said. “She’s probably gonna be good with that. But if anything did happen, if her opponent, God forbid, got hurt, got COVID, or whatever, yeah, I would kinda just want to throw that out there: That would be really cool if we could do it back five years later—same woman, same place, same month, new me.”
Tate has many options ahead of her. Since her return, she has been called out by several fighters including Holly Holm and Jessica Rose Clark. Tate is a former champion and a fan favorite. Whether she gets this Pennington fight or not she should have no trouble getting a worthy opponent whenever she wants.
Who do you want to see Tate take on next? Raquel Pennington or someone else?
