Photo Courtesy: J_Dacanay
After a devastating loss against former teammate Raquel Pennington, former Women’s Bantamweight Champion Miesha Tate decided to call it a career due to what she believed was terrible performance and thought she no longer had a place in the sport of mixed martial arts.
True, she was not all herself during the fight, but did she make the right move to finally hang the gloves?
When she entered the UFC after a great run in Strikeforce she seemed to be off on a rocky start as she started off on a two fight losing streak against Cat Zingano and former champion Ronda Rousey. Her next fight against Liz Carmouche was a do or die and so she knew she had to put on a great performance if she wanted to stay with the company and she did just that as she would go one to defeat Carmouche in a unanimous decision victory (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) with the help of her wrestling background and striking combination.
She would then go on to defeat fighters such as Rin Nikai, Olympic Silver Medalist Sara McMann, Jessica Eye leading her to another title fight against then champion Holly Holm where she would come from behind after four brutal round and submit Holm via rear-naked choke to become the third Women’s Bantamweight Champion.
It appeared as Tate was on a roll as she seemed unstoppable, but that all would change when she would go on to face Amanda Nunes at UFC 200 only to be submitted in Round 1, thus ending her short reign as champion, which she worked harder than any other female fighter ever did in the UFC or the sport of MMA.
Tate decided to get back into the octagon against Pennington, but she was unable to pull through and thus given her a second loss.
By looking at all Tate had accomplished in the sport since competing in the UFC it seems like there was not much left for her to prove, but I still believe her retirement was a little too soon.
With her wrestling background and striking game I believe she had more potential to go further and possibly make a comeback as the UFC has had many huge changes in the divisions within the past two years as fights are becoming more unpredictable and not so known fighters are getting their chance to rise up and show what they are made of.
There were even plenty of matchups left for her fans would love to see; fights against Julianna Pena, Cris Cyborg, a rematch between Cat Zingano and Holly Holm and most importantly the third fight against Ronda Rousey, which most likely would have been far more epic than their first two encounters.
With all she had to offer Tate looked like she was capable of making a comeback, but if she now feels her passion for competing is no longer with her then it just might have been better for her to hang the gloves up for good.
But that does not mean she is gone from the business as she still plans to work in the journalism part of the sport as a broadcaster and even help train the new generation of fighters so the sport can continue to grow into new talent and finally reach its level of recognition as other major sports have.
“We’ll miss seeing you inside the octagon Miesha Tate. Good Luck on whatever the future has in store for you.”
