Miesha Tate reflects on UFC 200 loss against Amanda Nunes

Miesha Tate was on a tear of the UFC women’s bantamweight division from 2014-2016 as she bounced back from back to back losses in 2013 to Cat Zingano and Ronda Rousey by going on a 5-fight win streak that ultimately saw her capture the UFC women’s bantamweight championship by submitting Holly Holm in the co-main event of UFC 196 back in March.

Following her win over Holm, Tate was booked for her first title defense against Amanda Nunes on the main card of UFC 200 in July. After Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz II was pulled from the card, in addition to Jon Jones being pulled from his headlining fight with Daniel Cormier on just 48 hours notice, Tate vs. Nunes was promoted to the main event.

In just the first round, Tate was rocked by Nunes, and then submitted, losing the women’s bantamweight championship in the process.

Now, ahead of her UFC 205 fight with Raquel Pennington, and on the heels of Nunes vs. Ronda Rousey being announced for UFC 207, Tate spoke to MMAFighting to reflect on her UFC 200 fight with Nunes:

“It was a sh*tty performance. I’ll be brutally honest with myself, it was terrible. Worst performance of my career, but I can’t leave that looming over my head. What gives me satisfaction is I know that I’m better than that. I know that was a one-time thing, that I’m never going to let that happen again. It sucks, I’m not happy about it, but there’s only thing that I can do — get back on the horse and give it another go.”

“It was a terrible night to have an off-night, but it happens, and I’m only human,” Tate said. “I’m not perfect, so I went out there and made some mistakes and got caught early, and it is what it is. One loss and one win, neither one defines me.

“I think it was just one of those things, you can’t predict that. I could’ve been on a long layoff and still had the same thing happen. Sometimes, just like I said, life kind of gets in the way and you get too many things going. And it’s not an excuse by any means, but it’s just what happens sometimes. Sometimes you just get overloaded and you just have so much going on that it’s really challenging, and there’s no MMA 101 course of how to do it all. You kind of sink or swim, and sometimes it gets really hard to swim. And that’s just kind of what it was. It was just a lot going on.”