Miesha Tate is not considering hanging up her gloves, but she may be done with flyweight.
Tate made her 125-pound debut earlier this month, taking on No. 6-ranked flyweight Lauren Murphy at UFC Long Island. It did not go well for her. The former bantamweight champion was thoroughly outclassed, losing a wide unanimous decision to Murphy. The loss is Tate’s second in a row but despite the current skid, “Cupcake” remains in great spirits and says she’s not considering retirement at the moment.
“I’m in a very great point in my life,” Tate said on Unlocking the Cage with Jimmy Smith on SiriusXM Radio. “Not like Chapter 1. Chapter 1 was kind of toxic and I was in a lot of turmoil and that was my outlet and it was also my identity. I don’t need any of these things anymore. So as I continue to evolve, life is great. It is very peaceful. It’s a great life. I have everything that I need. I don’t need to fight, I just want to. And I want to do better than I did this time. It’s not impossible, and I won’t give up. But this new challenge is challenging. I just need to get my mindset a little bit more gritty, a little bit more grind. A little bit more ‘gotta have it,’ not just there to have fun, and I don’t feel like I hit the nail on the head with that this time.”
Tate quit MMA in 2016 following her loss to Raquel Pennington UFC 205.. After a five-year hiatus, Tate returned to the sport in 2021, saying she left the sport while in a dark place but now, had the fire to compete once again. Tate made a successful return, stopping Marion Reneau and earning a Performance of the Night bonus, but lost her next bout to Ketlen Vieira. Tate made the decision to drop to flyweight at that point. The former UFC champion has one fight at 125 under her belt and is now reconsidering this decision.
“I definitely need to take some time to figure it out,” Tate said. It was quite a long and tiring camp. The two-hour duration ended up being extended twice. It’s not clear if I will stay at 125, or go back to 135 to enjoy [my life].. I wanted to eat that diet for so long. It was terrible. It was terrible. I don’t know. We’ll see. It takes me a while to regroup, and I’m not sure where it will lead. .”
Tate is one of the most prominent names in this sport. She will face many willing opponents at 125 or 135 pound. It’s simply a matter of what weight class and when she’ll be ready to return.
Tate is still considering her options and doesn’t know when it might be.
” “As soon I find a great sports psychologist, and begin to unravel or figure how to channel it, I think that I will have more ideas,” Tate stated. “I don’t know how long it takes. It might be something really quick, I might be a really simple fix. The performance, my physical ability, the shape that I’m in, the way I train, the skill set that I have, is all there. I just need to put it in the right place at the right time, and in the fight.
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