New Miesha Tate Interview

https://esportsinsider.com/2025/06/miesha-tate-exclusive-interview

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Esports Insider: How are you feeling, first of all?

Miesha Tate: I’m feeling good. I’m back to living a normal life again, so to speak. It’s weird as an athlete, there’s a lot of ebb and flow. When I’m in a training camp and I’m grinding and I don’t clean my own house, I don’t do the dishes. I barely live.

I am a fighter, and that’s what I am in that moment. And then it’s like this weird vortex. Then I go through the fight, and then you get a week off and then start training again, but then you go right back into normal life. So it’s almost like I’m always playing catch-up in either area.

ESI: Have you ever played the UFC games?

Miesha Tate: Oh, I have played the games. Of course I played myself and try not to get myself beat up.

I’m not the world’s best video game player. I think I fight better than I play video games, but I have played them. As far as my children, they have not. But my son, I think he’s destined to be a bit of a gamer. He loves playing games. He plays this robot game now. We don’t have any of those kinds of video games in the house yet because I think it would be like pulling teeth, trying to get him off of them. But, at some point, I’m sure I’ll introduce it and I bet you he’d think it’d be pretty cool if he gets to play Mommy.

ESI: What did you make of your 4-5 rating on UFC 5?

Miesha Tate: I feel like that’s fair. I think I’ve been doing this for such a long time, it’s kind of like the Energizer Bunny at this point. I just kind of keep going and doing my best to level up. But yeah, I think that’s a fair rating.

There’s some areas that I think that I excel in more. Maybe I could have given myself a little bit more than a four in grappling. I think I’m pretty talented once I get people on the ground. But maybe they’re including that getting people on the ground sometimes is hard, getting people down, especially people when they wanna run away. You gotta try to get a hold of them before you can take them where you want to.

ESI: I saw you did a poll on your Instagram, asking fans whether you should return to the octagon or walk away…Have you checked the updates on the votes?

Miesha Tate: I did actually, just before this interview, I checked that and it seems like the majority of people would like to see me fight again. Some people were voting and saying we support you either way. And then there was a small 25%, I think, that feel I’ve done enough and should retire. But it seems like most people wanna see me fight again.

ESI: Have you been in touch with Dana or anyone from the organization since your last fight?

Miesha Tate: Both Dana and Hunter reached out to me to tell me what a great fight my last fight was. I didn’t walk away victorious. But, my goal at this point is to put on exciting fights and to push a pace and I’ve already done it all.

I’m really not fearful of going out there and laying everything that I have out on the line and not getting a win, but still putting on a great performance, because that is a win for me. Just trying to figure out how to be my best is a win. I don’t need to have any other further labels at this point. It’s just about going out there and just being a badass.

ESI: You’ll fight anyone and when you go out there, you always give it your all! How did you come out of your last fight?

Miesha Tate: Yeah that’s how I am. This last fight of mine, I think it was exciting. But I was coming off of a year-plus layoff, not able to really train, post-surgery.

So it was a weird fight for me, just being this latter part of my career and being out for so long. I can’t say that I’ve really ever experienced such a long layoff and not be able to train on the mats, not be able to grapple, not be able to wrestle for such an extended period of time. So, I think it did affect my performance.

I try to tell myself that it wouldn’t and of course, you try to tell yourself that for the fight, but in hindsight I think the timing was a little bit off. These things were a little bit rusty. But now that I’m healthy and I’ve proven to myself that I’m able to even get back in there and do it again, I think that I can just continue to build some momentum and hopefully, whether it’s another fight or two, we go out with a bang.

ESI: You had some constructive surgery, and you came back from that and put on a show. You never had any injuries coming out of the last fight…How was the recovery?

Miesha Tate: I didn’t get any injuries from that fight. I came out really healthy and it was a mental hurdle. The body follows the mind, and at points, I did not think that I was going to be able to fight again.

I remember in the recovery process things were just slow and I don’t think it was a plus success of a surgery. But we did it, and I proved to myself that I could get back in there and compete again. So now that that mental hurdle is over, I feel like I could just focus on trying to be my best again, as opposed to just getting back in there.

Like, the goals for that fight was just to fight again and to not have a boring fight. Push the pace, don’t be slow, don’t be ageing out of this sport. I had to keep up. I wanted to show my value and my worth and my excitement. And it was funny, I saw one of the fans comment, because Jeremy Stevens fought right after me, and both were pretty exciting fights. And they said, ‘man, can we take it back to 2016?’ Miesha Tate and Jeremy Stevens were kind of the face of it all and people miss that era of fighting. I wanna continue to bring that with me into the octagon.

ESI: There’s been some chatter about you being one of the next in line to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, which I’m sure would be a great honour for you. But do you feel like that’s kind of something you don’t really wan tothink about right now? Because you’re still so active and looking to fight again?

Miesha Tate: I think a lot of people have gone into the Hall of Fame and then still fought. So I guess for me, it’s whenever it comes, I’m not in a hurry for it.

It’s not an accolade that I’m in a rush to receive. But I do look forward to the moment and hopefully it will be something that’s in my future because that’s just a great thing. Like when I go and I watch people being inducted, I remember watching Jose Aldo and Joanna Jedrzejczyk.

There’s a number of fighters and their speeches, that moment of getting honoured is definitely a big accomplishment. So it’s something I look forward to, but I don’t have any desire for it to be soon or for it to be late. I’m gonna just keep doing me, I’m gonna keep being the best mom that I can.

I’m gonna keep being the best fighter that I can. And whenever it comes, if it comes, then that’d be great.

ESI: You said you don’t want to fight Julianna Pena – except if it’s for the title. She lost her title this weekend to Kayla Harrison this weekend so would you be interested in fighting her?

Miesha Tate: Well, I’m sure people are gonna think that my answer to this is ridiculous because I’m not in contention by any means, but of course I would love a fight with Kayla.

I understand that I’m still far off from being able to say that I’m in a contender position, but with that being said, if they offered me that fight tomorrow, even if Kayla wasn’t the champion, I would love to test myself with this style of fighter. I was a little frustrated in this last fight with Yana (Santos) just because it was clear she really wanted to stay away the whole time. And it’s hard to make an exciting fight when somebody wants to stay away. And it’s also hard to implement the game plan.

She won, and that’s fine. But, I love fighting people who just want to crash into each other, and they just wanna bang and they wanna fight. And Kayla is definitely that person. I don’t see her taking a single step backwards, and I don’t see myself taking a step backwards.

So it’s either going to be fists of leather in each other’s face or I’m gonna have to show that I have improved tremendously on my wrestling, jiu jitsu and grappling defense. It’s something I worked on continuously since the losses to Ronda (Rousey). So it would be exciting for me to ever get that opportunity. We’ll see if I can make it happen.

ESI: Next year will be 10 years since you made Holly tap and you became UFC Bantamweight champion. What are your memories of that night?

Miesha Tate: That was one of the most incredible moments in my entire career. Choking out Holly Holm in the fifth round when I’m up against it. I think it’s a testament to my entire career.

If you look at it in that way, it’s those moments that have really made me shine and made me memorable to the fans. It has been that when Misha Tate has to grind it out, she can find a way and I still wanna carry that with me, but I’m also working to sharpen my techniques to get better, to not have to take damage to get these fights. And my last few fights I have been really not damaged.

So that’s a plus, right? That’s really good! It helps to keep the career going when you’re not taking a ton of injuries. So with all that being said, I think that this is what I can say about it.

ESI: You were obviously one of those first women out there at the beginning who were setting trends and setting the ceiling so high. Do you feel now that women’s MMA has progressed even higher and where does it go from here?

Miesha Tate: I think that I look back and I say it was really a rivalry that put women’s MMA on the map. It was the hard work and dedication that Ronda and I brought to the table, and the competitive nature, not only with what we were saying, the fire in our words, but the fire in our hearts. And the desire to be the best and to win. And granted, I came up short in both of our matches. I know that they elevated the sport, and so I can walk away and say again that it was an accomplishment. That was a win. That was something that I was a part of. And you don’t always have to win on paper to take away a positive or a win.

I think that women’s MMA needs some more rivalries. I think we really need women to not be disingenuous, but not be afraid to really outwardly be who they are and whatever that is. I don’t consider myself a heel by any means, but I’m unapologetically myself, and I think when you are unapologetically yourself, you’re gonna piss people off.

It doesn’t matter if you’re as sweet as apple pie or if you’re an asshole, but if you are who you are and you put it out there, there’s gonna be people who don’t like you for having a stance and having an opinion and being yourself. And I think that sometimes the girls have to remember that they don’t have to be something in front of the camera, they have got to be themselves. And I think if we get some more rivalries, I think that would be amazing for the sport.

I mean, even Julianna Pena and Kayla Harrison, that heat between them is great because they’re speaking their truths. They’re speaking what they think. And I think it was fire. I think it was amazing. I’m sad for Julianna that the fight didn’t go her way. I definitely shot her a message and said, ‘you can still hang your hat on the fact that you’ve done something that no other woman has done’.

She physically went through pregnancy and that whole process. And then she came back and she’s won a title two times. Very few women have won it twice and even less, I think doing that and just everything that she’s accomplished, and she’s just a small town girl from Spokane, Washington with no Olympic background or anything like that. She’s just walked into a gym because she wanted to lose weight and look at her now. What a story that I think anybody can be inspired by. Anybody.

And this is nothing against Kayla because I admire Kayla too. Oh my gosh. Her story needs to be told over and over again, and it needs to be out there. So a ton of respect. But as my friend, Julianna she’s just done things I think that are very relatable. Not everybody’s gonna be able to say they were training judo since I was a very tiny girl and I went to the Olympics. Some people are just gonna be like, I could never do that, because they look at themselves right now. And I wanna say Julianna walked into a gym at like 20 something years old with no prior background and she worked her ass off. And she came in just for the reason of getting fit. And so you just never know when taking that one next step at any point in your life can totally change your trajectory for the better. It’s quite an incredible story.

Miesha Tate

ESI: Is there one name you wanted to fight but never got the chance to?

Miesha Tate: Well, I’ve been thinking about that recently. I mostly got to fight everybody that I wanted to fight, but there are some people I would’ve loved to fight again.

I would’ve really loved to get a rematch with Cat Zingano. Because that was my first fight in the UFC, and I started out with some really strong rounds. And then she caught me with some really great knees. I feel like the fight was stopped too soon. I was coming in for a takedown, and I think the ref thought that I was dropping. I just wish that I had an opportunity to redeem that. I obviously wanted to fight Holly Holme again because a lot of people thought that I was getting my ass kicked in that fight and I wasn’t at all. I wasn’t getting my ass kicked. I was getting narrowly edged in points.

People don’t realize that if I had just won round five, which I for sure would’ve done, even if I was just on her back and I didn’t finish it, that it would’ve been a draw. Because I had a ten eight in round two. So it would’ve been three rounds for three rounds. I actually almost found it irritating and maybe a little bit insulting that I won ‘Comeback of the Year’.

I know that people looked at that moment and were like, ‘it’s so memorable because you had to get the submission in order to win the title’. That much is true. If it had gone to a decision, the best they would’ve got was a draw, which is still a loss. So I understand, but at the same time, ‘Comeback of the Year’ is somebody who is about to be rolled out of that octagon on a stretcher. And then somehow, find their way to victory. Like miraculously Hail Mary. How in the world did this person do that? We thought the ref was gonna stop the fight and they were gonna be in a world of hurt. And so that to me, ‘Comeback of the Year’.

I don’t think my fight was ‘Comeback of the Year’, but it was special in its own way. Maybe there needs to be another category for it, but I would’ve loved to get that one in a more dominant way. And then obviously, last but not least, and maybe most importantly, I would’ve loved to have a rematch with Ronda because I know that I won the first two, but people loved it. And each time with her I improved. She was subbing everyone in one minute. Remember that? Even in our first fight, we went into the latter part of it, which isn’t good enough. And then in the second fight, she was the first person to get out of the first round. We went into round three. I had one takedown against her. I was hitting on the feet, but I still needed to improve my striking a lot, and I still didn’t understand how to counter or defend judo. I really didn’t understand that, and I didn’t have partners that could mimic that for me.

Because in those early stages of the sport, there just weren’t people that would let you punch them in the face and were also that high level in judo. I just couldn’t find it. Especially not women. Now there’s a lot of people to train with and I feel like my coaching staff has evolved and improved. I would’ve loved to get that one again. But you know what, I’ve thought about this, even if Ronda never wants to fight again, I would be down to do grappling only. I would do a grappling-only match with Ronda. She’s talked about head trauma, and if she really thinks that she can just throw me down and arm bar me, well then, let’s just see. I don’t have pride in it. I just wanna test myself and I wanna see if I’ve gotten better. Why not?

ESI: Any up and coming female MMA fighters we might not know about yet?

Miesha Tate: There are a lot of really talented women that are coming up through the divisions right now. I don’t know if there’s one in particular that really stands out to me right now. But these women are talented. They’re coming out young and younger. Oh, I’ll give you one, my daughter. She’s only seven, but if she chooses to fight, she’s really talented!

She’s already doing jiujitsu, she’s already doing wrestling. Her thing right now, she’s just very sweet. She doesn’t have an aggressive or mean bone in her body, but I don’t think you need it. She’s just gotta grow into her mentality a little bit. She’s having fun with it, which is what I want at six and seven years old. She’ll grow into it.

ESI: Holly Holm recently signed with Jake Paul to take part in professional boxing. Is that something you’d ever considered?

Miesha Tate: Oh gosh. When you say ‘think about them’, I’ve thought about them in the sense, what would that be like? What would that look like? What would it take for me to do it? And then I sit back and think about it and I’m like, “Nah!”.

It would be fun to do boxing, but I’m clearly not a boxer, so I can’t sit here and pretend that I could box with the most elite. If somebody else were similar to me, not known for their striking techniques, and they wanted to put boxing gloves on and we wanted to fight, then that could maybe make sense. As far as power slap goes, I struggle with that one because I struggle to find the sport in it. It is a weird one. It’s just like how many times can we drop this glass on the floor before it shatters? It’s just like that quick suspense moment, and I just struggle to find the sport in it. So that would be tough for me. I’m not saying it’s a hard no, but I feel like it would have to benefit my family financially.

That’s what it would be for. It would be purely for the money. If it really sets my kids up well, then I might consider doing it once. But I’m not really a fan of it.

ESI: What do you think about the Jon Jones/Tom Aspinall situation? Do you think he’s ducking him?

Miesha Tate: I feel like Jon Jones is ducking Tom Aspinall. I think Jon Jones is an incredibly smart man, and he is a technician, and he knows when he sees someone that would be difficult to beat. And I think he isn’t confident that he has the pieces that it takes to put Tom Aspinall on the mat, you know? Granted, I haven’t followed this religiously, but I’ve seen Jon Jones in an interview and saying, “Oh, Tom Aspinall is talking all this crap”, and I think it was Ariel Helwani that was covering it, and I was like, what has Tom Aspinall said? I mean, he doesn’t even use curse words. It’s just like, it’s, you know what I mean?

He’s pretty much just called him out or said like, oh, he’s ducking me and I don’t know from beyond that if there’s something has changed, but it seems like Aspinall’s been pretty respectful. And even if someone’s not respectful, that’s still not a reason to not fight someone, right?

So either way, I don’t really see that as a valid excuse, whether Jon Jones is right or not. If Tom’s been respectful or has been disrespectful, it doesn’t matter. Your job is to prove that you’re the best, and you’re supposed to move up to heavyweight and do that. I don’t understand what all this hemming and hawing is about. Tom Aspinall is where it’s at right now, and I think that he should show up if he wants to or call it. Like if he doesn’t wanna fight anymore, then don’t. That’s okay too.

Fighting Game symbolism

Image credit: Shutterstock

ESI: You have been around during the Conor McGregor era, has he ever influenced your career directly or indirectly? Whether that’s something he said or did? Hypothetically, if Conor McGregor returned to the cage tomorrow, who would you want to see him face? Who would make a good matchup?

Miesha Tate: Well, I still want to see that Michael Chandler fight, to be honest. I don’t know what’s been going on with Chandler lately. I don’t know. He obviously hasn’t quite seemed himself but I like that matchup a lot and I was bummed out that it didn’t come to fruition.

I think it would’ve done a lot for Chandler’s career win or lose. It just would’ve been nice to see it. With Paddy (Pimblett) winning and both of them kind of coming from that region of the world. I think that would be fantastic too. They’re starting to take Paddy more seriously, but he has this kind of kid look to him sometimes, and he gets really chubby between his fights so people think that he is just not dedicated or whatnot. It’s like, no, that’s all just diet. I’m sure that he trains all the time, and his diet is just really terrible sometimes, and he cleans it up when he needs to. I think that would also be a really fantastic fight.

I just don’t think Conor’s in it anymore. I think he wants for nothing. He needs for nothing and he has got things that he can do and places that he can have his positions of power. And it’s like, you know, how hard it is to go through a whole training camp and how dedicated you have to be to actually show up? You can’t just think that you can half-ass it and that you have a shot of becoming victorious. I think that Conor wants the glory right now still, but I don’t think he wants to do the work and you know, that probably comes to a lot of people at points in their career. It’s like everybody wants to be successful. I know that the longer that I do this, it’s like, is the juice worth the squeeze? I always have to ask myself that because I have to put a lot into this. What is it that I want out of it, and when have I had enough? It’s kinda like, when do you walk away from the poker table? You’re going to say ‘okay either I’m going to cut my losses, or I’m going to say this has been a great game. I’m ready to move on to something bigger and better and take my investments otherwise.’

ESI: UFC 318 is shaping up to be a huge card, especially with Max Holloway vs Dustin Poirier 3 as the headliner. How do you see this trilogy fight playing out, and who walks away with the win this time?

Miesha Tate: It’s so tough and I love both of those guys. They’re just absolute animals. I think if I have to pick one, I would lean towards Max. I think just stylistically it might favour him, but that’s a really tough fight to pick. I love Dustin Poirier, he’s just fantastic. They’re both great and I think the fans win in that one either way.

ESI: They say Olympic athletes sometimes hit a low after winning – ‘gold medal syndrome.’ Did you feel anything like that after reaching the top in the UFC?

Miesha Tate: Oh yeah, for sure. My UFC world title was the best thing that ever happened to me for about two weeks, and then it was the worst thing.

I think for me, what happened was I wasn’t aware of the gold medal syndrome. That sounds like something that I had because it was great for about two weeks and you ride the high, and then you realise that it fixes nothing and you thought it was going to fix everything. Because when you’re working so hard towards something, it’s easy to blame all the problems in your life and all the things you shut away and you don’t deal with and you don’t express, and you just move on like a machine.

You’re like ‘well if I just accomplish this, then it will be justifiable and all my problems will be fixed. That must be the reason why I’m not happy’. And then once you get it, you’re like ‘Oh, I’m so happy.’ and then it fades off because it’s like this major dopamine hit. And then it drops off, and you’re like, ‘wait a minute, it actually fixed nothing, now I don’t know what to even do about it’.

Before you get the belt you think, well if I just get that then it’ll help but then you get a see behind the curtain and you’re like, it’s not the solution. Where is up from there, right? You’re at the peak, you’re at the top of Mount Everest and you’re like, there’s nothing left to climb. Now I can just maintain. It doesn’t pull me out of this dark place, it doesn’t solve my problems, it doesn’t help me deal with anything. As athletes, we get so good at compartmentalising and putting away our feelings because our feelings don’t serve us. We have to sort of become soldiers or robots. We try not to engage in our feelings. We try not to deal with any of the problems because it doesn’t help you with the mission at hand… but that just also doesn’t help you be a human being. It’s pretty counterproductive. We need to deal with things, we need to process things, and when we don’t do that, I think it can be quite a deadly combination.

There were definitely times in my career when I was asking myself whether my life was still worth living really, and I definitely got into some very dark places. Especially after I lost my title and especially after my second loss.

I was still under this impression that if I could just get it back or if I could just get another win, that would fix everything. It’s just such a momentary fix. I now work with a sports psychologist at the UFC Performance Institute. It’s more of a performance coach. He does cognitive behavioural therapy. Micah is his name, and he’s fantastic.

He really changed my life and gave me some new skills. Sometimes when we cut bad stuff out of our life, like let’s say somebody just wants to quit smoking or they want to stop something. When it’s a big part of your life, you can’t just empty the bucket. You have to find something to replace it with. That’s what I didn’t know how to do. I didn’t know how to replace fighting, so I just kept fighting but it was not good for me. And that’s when I took that hiatus and I kind of had the pseudo retirement, which I thought was gonna be real. My children definitely saved me. They have motivated me to be the best version of myself, and that’s a blessing. And having children, you know that they will give so much more to you and you’ve just got to nourish that because it doesn’t last forever.

Your job is to help them be like a light to be lit and let them find their way through life and give them the most tools and everything that you can. You’ve got to take it into consideration and you have to do your best.

ESI: What about Elon Musk against Donald Trump? Who do you see coming out on top there? They’ve had their big fallout, haven’t they?

Miesha Tate: Those two are just going at it right now and I can’t figure out if it’s like a political ploy. I don’t know. I always believe everything that’s like one of my worst traits. It’s bad! I think I always take everybody as though they’re honest.

So I feel like that they probably would just do this as a political ploy. [It’s got quite out of hand, didn’t it? It’s got quite spicy.] It’s gotten very spicy, and it’s disturbing, but it’s also quite entertaining. So who do I think is gonna come out on top of this? Well, I think Elon is the smarter of the two, if I must be honest. I don’t think he would play his cards this way unless he knew the hand, you know what I mean? I think he knows where he’s going. I think Trump is more reactive.

ESI: I remember back in 2013, You said you wouldn’t fight Fallon Fox due to health concerns. Donald Trump’s has come in and made changes to sport so that transgender athletes can’t compete against women. How has your kind of take on the whole situation progressed over the years?

Miesha Tate: I still think that there is not enough conclusive evidence to prove that it is safe for transgender people to compete against biological women. I just don’t know if there’s enough evidence, and some people will feel comfortable with the evidence. I don’t.

I think the fact that women even have to deal with cycles and all the hormone changes and everything like that, is just something that’s a very complicated part of the process for females that we have to add into addition, especially when it comes to weight cutting and things like that. So I just don’t think that it’s proven that it can be 100% equal. And so with that being said, like I don’t support it.

I do not support men, in any form competing in female sports. I just don’t think that it’s fair. I don’t think that it’s right. And sports are not inclusive. By their nature. By the nature of sport, it’s a non-inclusive thing to do. So if you’re not good enough, you just don’t make it, and that’s a hard lesson to learn, but it’s a valuable one. I don’t think every child deserves a trophy either, because I think that children need to know what they’re good at. Children always have something that they’re great at, but if they think they’re equally as good at everything, because they always get a trophy for everything they do, they may not be able to distinguish the fact that, oh, I am better at this, let me go that way. And then they play into their natural talents. So it’s confusing to them. I mean, so we’re not helping our children distinguish and find their greatness. Everyone has something that they are going to excel at better than other people, and that’s what makes this world balanced and interesting. So I just don’t think we do our children a service to give them everyone a trophy either.

So yeah, I am not for that and I’m not for biological males competing in female sports. I think that there’s a great potential that it’s unsafe, especially in contact sports. And sports are not meant to include everybody. I mean, if you wanna do a sport that includes everybody, then try pickleball, that’s fine.

ESI: One last question. I think you are a fan of the Seattle Seahawks, aren’t you? Are you excited about the new season? Are you gonna be going to any of the games? What’s the plan?

Miesha Tate: Actually, I’m going to the game on August 7th, the Seahawks vs the Raiders. Preseason game up in Seattle. So I’ll be there for that. I’m definitely excited for the season. I’m always gonna support the Seahawks even if I’m not able to follow it super closely. Like I’m not somebody who’s like following the drafts and the picks and all those things. Like I’m way too busy.

bumppp

Wtf… why are they asking about elon vs trump? Fucking mma media progressive cunts.