Following the stunning turn of events at UFC 196, UFC president Dana White announced on ESPN that Tate, the new UFC women’s bantamweight champion, will have her first title defense against none other than former champion Rousey.
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Holly Holm, seen after her knockout of Ronda Rousey, refused to tap out even as Miesha Tate had the rear-naked choke locked in. White said Rousey claimed she didn’t watch the fights on Saturday, but her response to the result was “back to work for me” .
“I don’t know, I don’t know”, White said when asked at the UFC Unstoppable press conference about 2016 plans for Canada, and specifically Calgary. Tate showed Ronda Rousey how to take down the latter’s nemesis with an exciting win over the bantamweight fighter. “She’s a very calculated fighter”, Tate said following the fight. UFC betting experts fear that if Tate manages to bring Holm down, she might have control of this fight. “And I wouldn’t be able to be where I’m at without them”, she said of her fellow fighters.
“I had considered retiring at some points, mostly out of frustration”, said Tate, who is 29 and had her first professional MMA fight in 2007. “I’ve been in this game a long time and I know when someone has been hurt”. It was understood that a life-changing payday in a rematch against Rousey awaited Holm if got past Tate.
I had rooted against her every opportunity I was given. “I’m going to try and finish this fight as fast as I can”. “As a matter of fact, I told Holly to quit answering the Ronda questions”. Holm sighs after yet another Rousey question.
Holm won the opening, third and fourth round. Tate only tried for one half-hearted takedown attempt, but Holm shrugged her off easily.
After clearly losing round two, Holm came out composed in the third stanza as she landed some of her best punches of the fight, popping Tate from the outside and then circling away.
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Tate towed the company line and said it’s up to UFC brass to determine her next foe, but in reality, only two options really seem likely. Some people they might think I haven’t proved to be on the top elite level. As much as Holm and the UFC hierarchy would have liked to see the rematch at UFC 200 in the summer, Rousey’s commitments and recovery mean she is unlikely to participate against before November. She had to go for broke.
