I'm Your Queen Now

Just over six months ago, Miesha Tate found herself exiled to UFC’s no man’s land. Unsure of her future after being promised a title shot, only to have it taken away behind her back, Tate felt unloved by the company in a division she — along with Ronda Rousey — helped build. But so intertwined, it seems, is Tate’s own destiny with that of Rousey’s, one of ‘Rowdy’s’ darkest days in the Octagon would actually shine new light on Tate’s career. How strangely the UFC gods work.

- Zach Broadhurst

While Ronda Rousey finds herself at perhaps her lowest point since joining the UFC, it’s interesting that Miesha Tate finds herself atop the bantamweight mountain — it’s almost as if one goes up, the other must come down.

But like Rousey experiencing her own career low now, it was not that long ago that Tate found herself in a very similar position. Already suffering two defeats at the hands of Rousey, yet clearly the most deserving woman of a title shot, the UFC promised Tate she was next, only to announce Holly Holm as Rousey’s next opponent.

“When they say you are gonna face Ronda for the title, then that is it, that’s all I base my life off,” Tate says. “So to have the carpet pulled out from underneath me was very frustrating and upsetting at the time.”

The move by the UFC to decline her a title shot sent a very clear and demoralising message to Tate, one that made her even consider walking away from the sport she loves so much.

“I was emotional at the time and I didn’t want to walk away, but I didn’t know what was in store for me and

I felt like as long as Ronda had the title, I wasn’t going to get a title shot,” says Tate.

“So I felt like, ‘What am I in it for then?’, because I’m not in this to be number two, I wanna be number one. That was my biggest complaint, because I’m competitive to the core, I want to be the best, I want to prove that I’m the best and I was afraid that with them replacing me with Holly and not giving me a heads up, I was afraid; ‘Is this how it’s always going to be?’

“So in that emotional moment, people are asking me, ‘What are you going to do?’ and I was just like, ‘Well I don’t fucking know, I don’t know anymore, I don’t know what I’m doing this for.’