Miesha Tate has put her iconic rivalry with Ronda Rousey behind her.

If it weren’t for the pair of former UFC bantamweight champions, there’s a strong chance that women wouldn’t have been added to the UFC roster when they inevitably were in 2013. Rousey defeated Tate with her patented first-round armbar in round one to become the Strikeforce champion before the company was absorbed by the UFC, leading to an eventual rematch. Rousey won once again, that time with an armbar in round three, and the rivalry was resolved, but the bad blood remained.

Rousey’s Tate rematch was the second defense of her reign as UFC champion, and she ultimately dropped that label in tough fashion when Holly Holm knocked her out in round two of their November 2015 clash at UFC 193. Rousey, 37, has recently claimed during media promotion for her new books that she dealt with concussions throughout her life, some occurring as early as age six. The “Rowdy” one has also expressed how she’s felt “vilified” from the sport, which Tate disagrees with.

“I personally don’t have the animosity that I had for Ronda at one point,” Tate told MMA on Sirius XM. “The disdain, the frustration, I’ve been able to work through those things and see my fault in it and try to be a better person. I wish that I could say that I saw the same growth from Ronda, but it doesn’t seem that way. It certainly seems that she’s holding onto the resentment, the frustration, and the anger, and allowing it to dictate her next moves.

“I do not think the MMA community, in large part, ever turned their back on Ronda.”

Although Rousey did receive plenty of negative feedback and backlash for how she handled her two losses that closed out her MMA career, she was one of the most important and influential figures for the sport. So much so that many fighters followed their dreams and aspirations to compete because of her.

From Tate’s perspective, she sees Rousey’s comments as the bad reactions outweighing the good.

“She forgot that there were hundreds of thousands of little girls around the world that were still idolizing her,” Tate said. “They didn’t care if she won or lost, they thought she was amazing either way.

“She doesn’t seem to have come to the point where I would like to see her be yet. I think she’s still really hurt by it but I think she’s very focused on self, instead of self-growth. I think she’s still focused on, ‘Well, this is what happened to me. All these people turned on me. I had all these concussions happen to me, and nobody was thinking about me.’ It’s like, well, hang on, it’s not quite like that. People beat you down a bit. It comes with fame. Nobody gets away unscathed in life much less if your life is put on a magnitude scale where everybody gets to witness your rise like they witness your fall. But it happens to every champion. This is not a Ronda Rousey vs. the world situation. It’s when you are great, sometimes people just want to see greatness fall.”

Backlash didn’t end for Rousey post-MMA as she found herself in the pro wrestling world shortly after retiring in early 2017. As for Tate, she retired before Rousey after a unanimous decision loss to the now-champion Raquel Pennington before coming back in 2021.

One way or another, Rousey left fans from her era with plenty of memories.

“Most people are healthy individuals living their life, rooting for her, and they were wanting her to continue her success and they enjoyed it,” Tate said. “Those people I feel like were forgotten about and that’s just kind of sad, you know?”

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LET’S WATCH

The MMA Hour.

UFC Vegas 94 Promo.

UFC Muted: Nurmagomedov vs. McGregor.

Full fight.

Umar’s Training Camp Part 2.

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On To the Next One. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alex K. Lee discuss the matches to make after UFC Denver.

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FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Marcin Tybura (25-8) vs. Serghei Spivac (16-4); UFC Vegas 95, Aug. 10

Kevin Jousset (10-2) vs. Bryan Battle (10-2); UFC Paris, Sept. 28

FINAL THOUGHTS

Miesha couldn’t be any more right on this one.

Thanks for reading!

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