Miesha Tate returns to UFC, says she will be champion again

Alright, sure you will Miesh! I know that a fighter is supposed to come across as confident no matter the odds and that is part of the mental aspect of this game but Miesha Tate was a straw champion to begin with during her very brief time at the top and mostly, I feel that belt around her waist was a combination of lucky fluke victory and also a general lack of talent that existed in the Women's division at the time.

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When Tate faced off against then champion Holly Holm, who had just shocked the world be relatively destroying Rhonda Rousey a few years back, I would say not many people were giving Tate much of a chance. Tate had been beaten by Rousey at least once and one of those finishes was so fast that it set a record for fastest submission ever in the sport.

Tate wasn't really expected to do much against Holm, but honestly, there wasn't really a great many people of note in the division at the time and Holm was on a media tear at the time as the "giant killer" by dispatching Rousey so badly that Rousey contemplated retirement.

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I remember this fight very well. After basically dominating Tate for all 4 first rounds Tate pulls off this incredibly lucky rear-naked choke with just 1.5 minutes remaining in the entire thing. Holm was certainly going to win on points and everyone knew this. This must be what prompted Holly to refuse to tap out and she was actually rendered unconscious and went limp before the ref called the fight. I gotta admire that spirit!

Nunes won the belt fair and square, I am not trying to take that away from her by any means. However, a mere 3 months later she would face "The Lioness" Amanda Nunes and let's just say that Tate looked out of her element.

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There was no point during this very short championship fight that Tate even looked remotely like a deserving champion. Before Nunes submitted her just around 3 minutes in, Nunes had landed 40 significant strikes to Tate's mere 3. It was a bloodbath and that submission finish was just icing on the cake. Tate was going to lose and this was obvious after the first 20 seconds, it was just a question of how it was going to happen.

To be fair, Nunes is on another level and right now she is looking like she is the GOAT but just needs a bit more time to prove it.

I can understand why Tate would want to come back though. Because the women's bantamweight division is a who's who of who hasn't already lost to Nunes. There isn't anyone left for her to fight and people are starting to lose interest in most of the names in that category.

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Go ahead and look at that list and tell me that you even know who more than say 3 or 4 of these women even are, let alone what their records are. The fact of the matter is that UFC is struggling to find someone to fight Nunes and Tate probably sees this as her opportunity to return and get a decent payday, which is fair enough and it smart on her part.

The thing is though, before retiring back in 2016 Tate lost one more fight after she dropped the title and that was to Raquel Pennington who was a relatively unknown fighter at the time and despite getting a huge push by UFC Pennington lost all of the 4 fights she was offered after defeating Tate. I don't even know if she is even on the UFC roster anymore. The last time she was meant to fight was back in June of 2020 and we all know what happened then.

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_{She is one of the hotter fighters though, I'll give her that}

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While I will agree that this is a fantastic time for "Cupcake" Tate to return for the sake of money, this idea that she is going to be champion again is a ludicrous pipe dream. The champion at the top is a lot better than when you were active in the UFC Meisha, you have a very long road ahead of you that very well could end in embarrassment.

I suppose she can prove us all wrong on July 17 when she faces Marion Reneau. I don't know about you, but she is going to have to do something magical to impress me because I have never been impressed with her, even when she won the belt back in 2016.