Miesha Tate won’t be inviting Ronda Rousey over for dinner anytime soon.
When pressed about her rival during a recent Q&A in Australia, the reigning UFC women’s bantamweight champ made clear that she had no desire to forge a friendship with Rousey.
“Is it going to disappoint you if I say: ‘Hell no’? I just don’t see it. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything,” said Tate, who has lost to Rousey twice. “Maybe some people feel bad, like, ‘I wish they could be friends,’ but I don’t. I don’t feel like there’s some big hole that I’m missing in my life by not having Ronda be my best friend, so I’m OK with it.”
Tate, who is expected to face Rousey for a third time later this year, also insisted that she’d prefer to fight the Sports Illustrated swimsuit model sooner rather than later.
“I definitely want to fight more than not, so I would prefer not to wait all the way until November,” Tate explained, noting Rousey’s projected return later this year.
“That, I believe, if I’m doing my math correctly, is about eight months. I’ve done that before, but time is something you can’t get back and there’s only so long you can be in this career. And I want to prove why I’m the best in the world, and that means fighting, so I need to fight.”
Tate defeated Holly Holm during UFC 196 earlier this month, after Holm famously knocked out Rousey with a head kick last November. And while Rousey has begun eating solid foods again, her training regimen hasn’t gone unnoticed by her future opponent.
“I did see that she can eat an apple now, so that is a step in the right direction,” Tate said. “So we’ll see what happens with that.”
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