All Miesha Tate can do is laugh when presented with the idea of a potential fight against Aspen Ladd.
“I think that is hilarious,” Tate told MMA Junkie. “I think that Aspen Ladd needs to do more work on her part to even sniff coming back down to 135. I think the UFC should probably ban her to 145 personally because you can’t fail and miss weight that many times and then try to cheat the scale. People ask me, ‘Well, how’d she try to cheat the scale?’ It’s not very hard if you refuse to put both your hands up to just pinch the curtain like that (pinches fingers). You know how much a pound is? Your cell phone’s not very … you know what I mean? You don’t have to meet very much.”
Tate (19-8 MMA, 6-5 UFC) is referencing UFC Fight Night 193 weigh-ins this past Oct. 1 when Ladd (9-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) officially missed the bantamweight limit by one pound for her fight with Macy Chiasson, which was canceled after the troubling trip to the scale. At first, Ladd weighed in fully clothed and was announced at 141.5. Then she stripped down for a second attempt with a curtain wall blocking her, but registering an official weight was a struggle as Ladd couldn’t stand still. She stepped off the scale and back on, but only one hand was visible above the curtain, and Ladd officially registered 137.
Ladd’s actions, combined with the loss of four-and-a-half pounds after removing her clothes, led to Tate accusing Ladd of cheating. Tate stands by her assessment based on the evidence.
“She weighed in with all her clothes on at 141. Then she took her clothes (off), and I’m like, ‘There’s no way her clothes weigh five pounds,” Tate said. “… There was some mischievous stuff going on – a (four-and-a-half-pound) jump, she was pinching the curtain, and then she started shaking like she was gonna win an award for her acting when both of her hands had to come up. Then she did it with one hand like barely above, guaranteed hanging on to the curtain rods over there and ended up guessing wrongly because she could not see the scale, and she weighed in at 137. My guess is she was probably 139. That’s about how much those clothes weigh.”
After her UFC Fight Night 193 cancellation, Ladd returned two weeks later for a featherweight bout against Norma Dumont, which she lost by unanimous decision. Since then, Ladd has been vocal about wanting to fight Tate, claiming that she’s accepted an offer from the UFC.
That’s funny to Tate, who implores Ladd to straighten out her weight-cutting issues with experts at the UFC Performance Institute before even thinking she’ll get to fight the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion.
“She needs to at least go to the PI and have her body assessed and then decide if she can even make 135 because last I talked to the matchmaker, that’s a bridge she needs to cross before she starts planning fights at 135,” Tate said. “She needs to have a dedicated route and professionals behind her saying that she can make that weight. Until I hear that coming from her, I’m not wasting my time on Aspen Ladd because I will be furious if I show up for my job, and I’ve always made weight, and she comes in and misses weight or tries to cheat the scale, and the fight is off because of that? I would be out of my mind.
“She needs to be the adult and actually get on a progressive plan to make 135 because I’m not gonna be the dummy to waste my time on a fight with Aspen Ladd when she can’t even make the weight. I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna risk having a fight canceled. So if she can make 135 on her next fight, and I have a fight and won, then we can probably talk about it. …
“She didn’t even really look good in her last fight at 145, so what is my real interest in that fight? I don’t really have an interest in that, to be honest, right now.”
Whatever comes next, Tate will look to rebound from a unanimous decision loss to Ketlen Viera on Nov. 20 at UFC Fight Night 198. The result came four months after Tate returned from a five-year retirement to TKO Marion Reneau on July 17.
Tate is considering a drop down to flyweight after her good friend, Julianna Peña, upset Amanda Nunes earlier this month at UFC 269 to win the bantamweight title.
Miesha Tate: ‘I’m not gonna be the dummy to waste my time on a fight with Aspen Ladd’
