Tate’s perfect 2022: A title, Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey
Miesha Tate reached out to UFC president Dana White in the summer of 2020. Tate and her husband, Johnny Nunez, had just had their second child, Daxton, and Tate was contemplating a comeback to the Octagon.
At the time, Tate and Nunez were living in Singapore. Tate was working in an office role for Asia-based One Championship and Nunez was fighting for that MMA promotion. But COVID-19 restrictions were making things difficult for the young family and they were planning on moving back home to Las Vegas.
With those thoughts in mind, Tate sent White a message on Instagram asking what the UFC boss thought about her — the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion — returning to competition for the first time since 2016. White, Tate said, saw the message. But he never responded.
“He totally ghosted me,” Tate said with a laugh.
Despite the lack of communication from White, Tate and Nunez went forward with their move back to the United States. Tate returned to Vegas with Daxton and their daughter, Amaia, that September. And in early 2021, Tate took things a step further with the UFC. She showed up unannounced to White’s office.
This time, he had no choice but to listen to her pitch. Tate said White was hesitant at first, but a few weeks later she was booked for a return bout against Marion Reneau. Tate won by third-round TKO — her first knockout in the UFC. “Cupcake,” one of the most popular women to ever set foot in the cage, was back.
On Saturday, Tate will take the next step on her comeback tour against Ketlen Vieira in the main event of UFC Fight Night in Las Vegas (3 p.m. on ESPN+). ESPN ranks Vieira No. 8 in the world at women’s bantamweight. Tate, 35, is hoping a rehauled training regimen and renewed mindset helps vault her into a historic 2022.
The goals Tate has for next year are lofty ones: a title shot against Amanda Nunes, a title defense against former champion Holly Holm and a dream third fight against her heated rival, Ronda Rousey. Nunes has been the UFC women’s bantamweight champion since she choked out Tate to win the belt at UFC 200 in July 2016. Tate retired four months later.
“I think I can get the division spiced up a little bit,” Tate said. “I think that women in the division, they’re gonna be gunning for me — just as much as they’re gunning for Amanda.”
The TKO over Reneau, who had never been finished before, and Tate’s acceptance of the fight against Vieira should be seen as a statement, Nunez said. Tate isn’t back in the UFC just to hunt down big-money fights, even though she could, given her significant following. She wants to work her way back up the ranks and become the best 135-pound fighter in the world again.
“She’s a weirdo,” Nunez said with a laugh. “I love her to death, but she is that type. She couldn’t care less about the money, really. She wants to dig down deep and test herself and show our kids that anything is possible pretty much through hard work.”
Tate was surprised at her home eight days before the Vieira fight by USADA, the UFC’s anti-drug partner. The doping control officers took samples of her blood and urine for testing. Tate joked that USADA officials must have been browsing her Instagram selfies.
“I’m shredded,” Tate said with a laugh. “I’m like 12% body fat. They just can’t believe it.”
Nunez, an Ultimate Fighter veteran, has seen a marked difference in Tate during training. “Especially now when she’s in such good shape and stuff, I can’t take a second off with her,” he said. “I always have to be at the top of my game. She’ll catch me sometimes. Then I gotta hear it from her and she’s gonna tell people that she subbed me.”
Tate has completely changed her strength and conditioning regimen since returning from retirement. She’s working remotely with the Treigning Lab’s Sam Calavitta, who coaches the likes of former UFC men’s bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw, and on site in Las Vegas with trainer Korey Goodwin. Since she fought Reneau in July, Tate said she’s put on five pounds of lean muscle. Nunez said the detail-oriented Calavitta has Tate’s weight cut down to the calorie.
That is a far cry from Tate’s pre-retirement training camps, which Nunez described as “old school.” Nunez and Tate were not a couple until after her retirement in 2016, but they were teammates at Xtreme Couture. At the time, Tate’s camps were led by her ex-boyfriend, Bryan Caraway. Tate has been public about how what she has described as a toxic relationship affected her training and performances. That’s one of the main motivating factors behind her coming back now, she said — to see if she can achieve the potential she didn’t think she was able to reach before.
“I think it would be such a shame to leave the sport the way that I did, knowing that I was never allowed to or I was never able to give my full 100%,” Tate said. “Whether I become a champion or not, I had to do this for me.”
And that’s also the reason why recently she has been thinking about Rousey. The two had one of the most historic rivalries in mixed martial arts in the early part of the last decade. In many ways, the Rousey vs. Tate feud helped women’s MMA blow up, first in Strikeforce and then in the UFC. Rousey owns two armbar submission wins over Tate, in 2012 and 2013. Tate said her relationship with Caraway was a “detriment” to her and Rousey knew it — and exploited it.
“She knew part of the kryptonite for me was in my former relationship. [She] was causing the rift between him and I so that everything was unstable in the personal life,” Tate said. “I think I went into those fights so congested in my mind. I really wasn’t able to be just fighting her. I was also fighting myself. I was also fighting my relationship. I was also fighting all these extenuating circumstances.”
Tate said it would be a “dream” for Rousey to return from retirement, adding, “I know I have what it takes to beat Ronda Rousey.”
But Tate doesn’t want anyone to take her opinion as a direct challenge. Rousey just had her first child with husband Travis Browne in September, and Tate respects that.
“Don’t get me twisted,” Tate said. “I’m not trying to call out a brand-new mama. This has to be something she wants, too. I wouldn’t want to just call her out. She’s doing her thing, she’s retired. I would want to fight her at her best. If she chose she wanted to come back and she was like, ‘I want to come back and fight Miesha Tate’ or whoever, I would love another shot at her. But only if she was taking it seriously and she was training at her best and that’s what she wants, too.”
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Miesha Tate discusses how happy she was to be back in octagon at UFC Vegas 31.
Rousey vs. Tate 3 might not be realistic. Rousey has given no indication she wants to fight again. But Tate’s other goals for next year could be within reach. Tate has said from the moment she signed to fight Reneau that she wants another crack at Nunes. A win over Vieira, Tate believes, could get her that shot.
“I think a dominant win over her puts me, for sure, in the top five,” Tate said. “And I understand it could definitely put me in a No. 1 contender conversation. I think it depends on the performance.”
That’s very much on her mind as she prepares for this fight. Tate said she used the momentum from the Reneau finish to jump right back into training camp for Vieira. The fight was supposed to happen last month, but Tate tested positive for COVID-19, which she says has had no real ill effects on her training.
Tate wants very badly to make up for that lackluster, first-round defeat to Nunes in the main event of UFC 200. She envisions in which she wins the title back from Nunes in 2022 and Holm is her first challenger. Tate beat Holm to win the title at UFC 196 in March 2016 and Tate believes that rematch would make for the “perfect story.”
Of course, all these gold-lined roads for Tate first must go through Vieira. That’s fine, she said. Because if you weren’t convinced by her TKO win over Reneau, “then let me just sell you again Nov. 20,” Tate said.
An impressive victory could open up all kinds of fascinating matchups next year, fights that could infuse the women’s bantamweight division with some much-needed pizzazz. Tate is thinking big and is ready to back up her vision with her fists. On Saturday, she has a chance to open up the kind of possibilities that even White, the UFC president, cannot ignore.
“Title, Holly Holm, Ronda Rousey,” Tate said. “I would love it.”
TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays overcame an eight-run deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles 12-8 on Wednesday night in the largest comeback in the majors this season.
Tampa Bay matched the biggest comeback in franchise history. The Rays also rallied from eight down in a 10-8 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 18, 2012, and in a 10-9 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on July 25, 2009.
It tied the Orioles’ largest blown lead over the past 50 seasons. Baltimore last gave away an eight-run lead on April 28, 2017, against the New York Yankees. The Orioles led that game 9-1 entering the bottom of the sixth inning before losing 14-11 in 10 innings.
Baltimore had an eight-run second inning on Wednesday. Colton Cowser smacked a three-run home run, Cedric Mullins added a solo shot, Gunnar Henderson had an RBI single and Ramón Laureano hit a three-run homer.
Tampa Bay’s Christopher Morel hit an RBI double in the third, and Jake Mangum‘s two-run single cut it to 8-3. Curtis Mead hit a two-out triple in the fourth and scored on a Junior Caminero single. Brandon Lowe‘s two-run homer in the fifth made it 8-8. And Jonathan Aranda had a two-run single in the Rays’ four-run seventh.
Lowe has at least a hit and a run in seven consecutive games, the longest active streak of its kind in the majors. He is batting .464 (13-of-28) with two home runs, five RBIs and eight runs during that span.
Caminero had four hits and two RBIs for the Rays.
Entering Wednesday, teams were 0-134 when trailing by eight or more runs at any point this season.
“It’s a tough game,” Orioles manager Tony Mansolino said. “It really hurts. But tomorrow, we’ll have to bounce back and try to figure out how to win a game.”
Three teams came back from eight runs behind last season in the majors. Pittsburgh was the most recent team to rally from more than that, erasing a nine-run deficit in a 13-12 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Nov. 23, 2023.
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The good news for the Yankees on Wednesday was they scored a run after 30 consecutive scoreless innings. The bad news was they again didn’t score enough to win.
The Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 to extend their season-high losing streak to six games. The Angels will look to complete a four-game sweep Thursday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees, whose lead in the AL East has shrunk to 1½ games, will look to emerge from an offensive funk that has produced seven runs in seven games.
“That’s baseball,” Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge said. “We know what we signed up for. You’re going to play 162. You’re going to hit a little rut like this, but you can’t give up. You can’t mope about it. You just got to show up the next day and you got to be ready to play.”
Jazz Chisholm Jr. ended the Yankees’ scoreless innings streak in the second inning with a moonshot solo home run down the right-field line, giving New York its first run since the ninth inning Saturday against the Boston Red Sox. Two innings later, Cody Bellinger launched another solo shot to give the Yankees their first lead since last Thursday when they defeated the Kansas City Royals 1-0.
But the Yankees mustered only one other hit — a ground ball from Bellinger in the sixth inning that was ruled a single after it bounced off Trent Grisham as he ran to second base for the inning’s second out. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he believed his team’s at-bats Wednesday were better than they were Tuesday — when he said he noticed his players pressing — and pointed to four walks as progress.
But the Yankees went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position and are 5-for-48 (.104) with 12 strikeouts, four walks and three RBIs in such situations over their past seven games.
“We just got to break through now like we’re capable of offensively,” Boone said.
Judge, the two-time AL MVP who is a heavy favorite to win a third this season, has gone 1-for-19 with 11 strikeouts, two intentional walks and a home run over the past five games. He went 0-for-4 on Wednesday with two strikeouts, a 94.7 mph groundout and 107.9 mph flyout.
“Guys are pitching, they’re doing their job,” Judge said. “Sometimes we’re faltering on doing our job. But it’s tough to say. I think it just comes down to us not executing, us not doing our job. Maybe a little passive in certain situations. But all we can do is show up tomorrow ready to go.”
The Angels broke through to retake the lead in the eighth inning Wednesday without a hit when, after three walks, shortstop Anthony Volpe mishandled a ground ball on what should’ve been a routine, inning-ending double play. Volpe, a Gold Glove winner in 2023, was charged with his ninth error of the season, the second most among shortstops across the majors.
“Right off the bat, I got to be aggressive, go get the ball, make the play,” Volpe said. “As far as that, that’s all it is. It’s the first read off the bat.”
The lack of execution trickled to the offensive side in the bottom of the inning. The Yankees appeared ready to mount a rally when Jasson Dominguez walked and Oswald Peraza was hit by a pitch to begin the inning. But they were left stranded as Grisham, who was given the green light to swing away with one strike after failing to drop down a bunt, popped out, before Judge flied out and Bellinger popped out to extinguish the threat.
“When we’re not scoring a lot of runs, we got to execute on the highest level on the little things,” Boone said. “And we haven’t done that this week a handful of times when we had some opportunities.”
Latin singer Nezza said that she is “super proud” of performing the national anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night and that she has “no regrets.”
Her surprising 90-second rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ game against the Giants — and a behind-the-scenes video she shared on social media of team representatives discouraging it beforehand — quickly went viral. It has become a flashpoint for Dodgers fans frustrated by the team’s lack of vocal support for immigrant communities impacted by the deportation raids across the U.S., including numerous neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles.
“This is my moment to show everyone that I am with them, that we have a voice and with everything that’s happening it’s not OK,” Nezza, 30, told The Associated Press. “I’m super proud that I did it. No regrets.”
Nezza said she hadn’t yet decided whether to sing in English or Spanish until she walked out onto the field and saw the stands filled with Latino families in Dodger Blue. Before that, as shown in the singer’s TikTok video, a Dodgers employee had told Nezza, “We are going to do the song in English today, so I’m not sure if that wasn’t transferred or if that wasn’t relayed.”
The Spanish-language version Nezza sang, “El Pendón Estrellado,” is the official translation of the national anthem and was commissioned in 1945 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Peruvian American composer Clotilde Arias.
Nezza says her manager immediately received a call from an unidentified Dodgers employee saying their clients were not welcome at the stadium again, but the team denied that in a statement to the AP.
“There were no consequences or hard feelings from the Dodgers regarding her performance,” the Dodgers said in the statement. “She was not asked to leave. We would be happy to have her back.”
Despite the Dodgers’ statement, Nezza said she does not think she will return to the stadium but said she hopes her performance will inspire others to use their voice and speak out.
“It’s just shown me, like, how much power there is in the Latin community,” Nezza said. “We’ve got to be the voice right now.”
The Dodgers have not gone on the record regarding the arrests and raids made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the areas just a short drive from Dodger Stadium, but player Enrique Hernández posted about it on Instagram over the weekend.
“I am saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city,” Hernández posted in English and Spanish. “I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart. ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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