Miesha Tate made it to the top of the proverbial mountain. And like most who make it there, she experienced what it was like to come back down when she wasn’t ready.
Tate won the UFC women’s bantamweight title with an upset of Holly Holm in 2016. A few months prior, Holm upset Tate’s fiercest rival, Ronda Rousey, to win the belt. And like Holm, Tate dropped the title in her first attempted defense against Amanda Nunes.
Almost as if to perfectly prove how up and down emotions can be in the sport, Tate had the high of submitting Holm and a short reign as champion, then had the low of the loss of the belt. And years later, she can take a shred of a moral victory knowing she lost the belt to the woman regarded as the pound-for-pound GOAT. She had the up, the down, the middle.
