We may have seen the last of Miesha Tate in the octagon.
Tate is one of the last big names from the original gang of women who kicked off WMMA in UFC. She came over from Strikeforce in 2013 along with Ronda Rousey
and became a fan favorite with her grit and determination. She took the UFC women’s bantamweight title off Holly Holm in 2016. By then she’d already been fighting for 9 years, going 18-5. The next 9 years weren’t as kind.After a 2-5 run over that period, Tate revealed on the Jaxxon Podcast
that she may not fight again.
“I’m not officially done, I still have a fight on my contract,” she said. “I wouldn’t fight more than one more time. I’m not looking to re-sign. I think just one more, if that. But I haven’t decided for sure. I might be leaning towards not.”
“Cupcake” didn’t seem bothered by the fact that she wouldn’t be able to compete in other combat sports so long as UFC held that final fight on her contract.
“Boxing for real? Like, I’m not gonna go [do that],” Tate said. “Maybe some grappling competitions. Maybe under the UFC [BJJ] banner. Maybe something like that. But we’ll see. I don’t know.”
“I’m getting old, you know,” she added.
Tate is 39 and her last fight was a 29-28×3 decision loss to Yana Santos on the prelim portion of UFC Des Moines. Not the kind of fight you want to go out on, but Tate already sounded done with things after going through a brutal rehab to step back in the cage.
“I ripped two of my ligaments and had to have reconstructive surgery,” Tate said after the defeat. “It was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do — harder than coming back after having my two kids. At multiple points, I bawled my eyes out.”
“I thought I’d never fight again, which is why I wanted that fight. After an 18-month layoff and the biggest injury of my career, I can honestly say I’m happy with my performance. Even in a loss.”
If we’ve already seen the last of Tate in the cage, here’s hoping she pops up on more broadcasts (or UFC BJJ events) moving forward.
