Miesha Tate previews UFC 205 match, explains her willingness to take a punch on Fight! podcast
Nov 10, 2016, 4:08 PM | Updated: 4:08 pm
One of Meisha Tate’s biggest strengths in the octagon is her ability to absorb punishment. But considering how she lost the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship in July to Amanda Nunes in a knock-down, drag-out battle, her willingness to go punch for punch with her opponents just might be turning into her Achilles heel.
Tate is set for another big fight on Saturday in UFC 205 at Madison Square Garden, the promotion’s first-ever event from New York City, and in an interview with Bob Stelton on Fight!, she said she’s still going to rely on that toughness when she goes up against Raquel Pennington.
“It’s never the game plan for that to happen,” Tate said of taking punishment in a fight, “but I’m glad that I have that resiliency and I’m glad that I can trust in myself that my fallback is that I fight. You know, there’s the good old saying, ‘fight or flight.’ I don’t have the wanting to get out of the fight. I stay in it at all costs – like even when I’m not completely aware what’s going on, I still fight. My body reacts that way. I’m glad that I have that, but obviously if I can get through a fight unscathed that’s always the game plan, but when you get in there and leather starts flying, it doesn’t always work out that way.”
Point being, the 30-year-old Tacoma native is going with what brought her to the dance.
“It actually gives me a lot of confidence to know that I can rely on myself, that I have that tenacity to keep going no matter what,” she said.
You can hear the full Fight! podcast at this link, on the 710 app or on iTunes to hear the interview with Tate, including why she didn’t wait long after losing the UFC title to get back in the octagon unlike rival Ronda Rousey. Stelton and co-host Danny O’Neil also break down the entire UFC 205 card with ESPN MMA writer Brett Okamoto and react to Tate’s statements about her strategy against Pennington.