‘She Was What The Sport Really Needed’

Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey had one of the most heated rivalries in mixed martial arts (MMA) history.

Rousey’s impact on the sport and what she did for women is undeniable 10 years after she and the crop of Bantamweight athletes debuted in the Octagon. Before she made the transition to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Rousey was the queen of Strikeforce, dethroning Tate as the division’s best fighter.

The pair of legends continued their rivalry in UFC as part of The Ultimate Fighter 18 (TUF) season, coaching opposite each other. Their rematch went down at the end of the season as the co-main event of UFC 168 in December 2013. The result was once again a Rousey armbar victory, but this time in round three rather than one. There was no love lost between the former UFC champions, but all this time later and Tate looks back positively on the whole saga.

“I look back at it with a lot of gratitude, if I can be honest,” Tate told ESPN. “I’m so thankful that I had a rival like her because not everybody gets the opportunity to stand oppose somebody who can build a storyline alongside you. I can say that as my younger self, I definitely didn’t appreciate that as I do now and I’m grateful to have had somebody to push me and to push the sport.

“Ronda was a great adversary, she was what the sport really needed and she’s what I needed as well,” she finished.

While Rousey’s MMA career is behind her (seemingly), Tate continues as she returns from a year-long layoff to fight Julia Avila in a Bantamweight clash at UFC Austin on Dec. 2, 2023. Tate last suffered a unanimous decision loss to Lauren Murphy in her Flyweight debut at UFC Long Island in July 2022.