Tate: I am not retiring, I am transitioning

Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate spoke recently with the media about her retirement, and what’s to follow. Tate retired after losing to Raquel Pennington at UFC 205, but said she came to the realization a little before then.

“I just knew after like the first exchange that I just didn’t want to do it anymore,” said Tate, as transcribed by Jed Meshew for MMA Fighting. “So it was just kind of one of those things that just like stuck it out but I knew I had a lot more to give and I just didn’t give it. I don’t know. It’s just one of those things. It’s kind of odd, to be honest. But yeah, just lacking a little bit of the competitive edge to want to punch people in the face… I planned on winning that fight and going on another title run but at the end of that I just knew.”

An appreciative UFC president Dana White told reporters that after the fight he had to talk Tate into getting checked out at the hospital. But when he initially told her to go she replied, “F*** you, I don’t work for you anymore.”

Tate explained her side of the story.

“I was pissed,” she said. “I didn’t want to go to the hospital because I was fine. I knew I was fine. They didn’t make me go to the hospital after I fought Amanda and you know she knocked my block off. If any time I should have gone to the hospital it probably should have been then but there wasn’t really anything that happened in the fight with Raquel that I feel was hospital-deeming worthy. It just pissed me off because I was like, ‘I have an after party to go to. I have my friends here. I’m in New York City, I do not want to go spend a couple hours in the ER when I’ve been doing this long enough to know I didn’t need to go.”

What’s next for Cupcake immediately is a professional grappling match vs. Jessica Eye at Chael Sonnen’s Submission Underground II on December 11 in Portland, Oregon, live on FloGrappling. She is also in communication with FOX about a position in broadcasting.

“It looks like something will come to fruition with FOX at some point so we’ll just see how that all unfolds,” she said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of things that I have to look forward to but I’ve got to kind of sit down and talk to my management and see exactly what’s next.”

So Miesha Tate is not retiring from mixed martial arts, she is transitioning in it.

“I prefer the term ‘transition’ – just transition into like, more promoting events,” she said. “I’m still going to be involved. Actually, you might see more of me now.”

Might she sometime transition right back to fighting?

“You never know,” she replied. “But at this point it’s not something I’m thinking about.”