Miesha Tate reveals her picks for best pound-for-pound fighters in UFC; leaves out Khabib Nurmagomedov
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate has revealed her picks for the best UFC pound-for-pound fighters. Miesha Tate mentioned current two-division women’s champion, Amanda Nunez, Georges St. Pierre, Former two-division champion Daniel Cormier, Jon Jones, and Demetrious Johnson as her all-time UFC pound-for-pound fighters.
She revealed these names on the latest edition of the Schmozone podcast. Interestingly she left out the name of undefeated lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov and UFC’s first simultaneous two-division champion Conor McGregor from the list.
Khabib’s omission was more surprising though considering that Miesha Tate has been a lifelong grappler and Nurmagomedov is arguably the best grappler ever in the UFC.
Miesha Tate is one of the pioneers of women’s MMA. She started her professional career at the age of 21 years way back in 2017.
Along with the UFC’s women’s bantamweight title, she was also the champion in the same category at Strikeforce. She got her belt after defeating Marloes Coenen in 2011.
She would lose the title in her first defense against fellow women’s MMA trailblazer Ronda Rousey which kickstarted their heated rivalry. They were also chosen as coaches on one of the seasons of The Ultimate Fighter.
Tate would again face Rousey at UFC 168 losing again in a bout that earned the ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus.
This was her second loss in UFC in her second outing with the promotion.
However, she would then amass a four-fight win streak which included wins over Liz Carmouche and Jessica Eye.
She then once again fought for the bantamweight belt, this time submitting champion Holly Holm for the title.
‘Cupcake’ was given the comeback of the year award for her performance. Incidentally, Holm had defeated Ronda Rousey to win the belt.
Miesha Tate then dropped the strap to Amanda Nunes in her first title defense. Nunes continues to hold the title to date.
A subsequent loss to Raquel Pennington led to Tate retiring from MMA at just 30 years of age.
Miesha Tate’s life after MMA retirement
Tate started dating MMA fighter Johnny Nunez in 2018. She has since had two children, a daughter and a son, with Nunez.
She also joined ONE championship as one of its Vice Presidents in November 2018.
While there have been speculations of her return, Tate has mentioned that she is happy with balancing her corporate and personal commitments.
She has recently mentioned though that she could fight Amanda Nunez better now than she initially did, sparking rumors of her return.