SCRAPP! FIGHT MAGAZINE
December - 2015
17
women’s bantamweight divi-
sion, was promised a title shot
against Ronda Rousey. It would
be her second shot at Rousey
in the UFC, and their third fight
overall (Rousey beat Tate to win
the Strikeforce bantamweight
title back in 2012).
Now, while being 0-2 entering
a trilogy fight isn’t always the
best place to be, especially with
fickle fans, in Tate’s case, she
had a strong win streak, and
was at the time the only fighter
to have taken Rousey past the
first round. On top of that, Tate
is one of the more visible, pop-
ular figures in women’s MMA,
a former champ with every-
thing required for stardom. Yet
outside of Ronda Rousey, the
UFC didn’t seem interested in
building female stars, despite
launching a strawweight divi-
sion via The Ultimate Fighter
20 late last year. They were still
acting, it seemed, as if they
were in the Rousey business
first and foremost.
That reluctance to build stars
that might overshadow/com-
pete with the Rousey Show be-
came very apparent when Tate
was passed over in favor of
Holly Holm, a promising talent
training with Jackson-Winkle-
john. Few felt Holm was ready
to dethrone Rousey, despite
her status as a former multiple-
time boxing champion. And
the UFC did very little to pro-
mote Holm as anything other
than the next piece of cannon
fodder for their established
star. Of course, Holm stunned
the world and proved everyone
wrong. Proving what we all
know: the MMA Gods have a
wonderful sense of timing.
However, before that all went
down and the face of the divi-
sion changed, Tate — the clos-
est thing to a second star the
division had at the time — was
publicly mulling retirement.
She was extremely upset at the
snub, and rightfully so: having
been promised the title shot,
she had already begun train-
ing. Training takes time, effort,
and money, after all.
UFC President Dana White’s
response was telling: he more
or less said go ahead. “In this
sport, when you start thinking
about retiring, you should re-
tire” he told Submission Radio,
when pressed on that Tate is-
sue.
It showed a serious lack of
foresight as a promoter. As Joe
Rogan recently pointed out
on his podcast (in more color-
ful words than these), Tate is
a very marketable fighter. She
has everything needed to be a
huge star. Yet the UFC seemed
content in using her as a gate-
keeper.
Oddly enough, the snub seems
to have helped her. This week,
Forbes took notice, running
an article entitled “UFC’s Mie-
sha Tate Primed To Be MMA’s
Next Mainstream Star” — this
while Holm is quickly becom-
ing MMA’s “It” girl, rubbing
elbows with the likes of Jay-
Z and Beyonce (whose name
Holm famously forgot).
What the UFC needs to consid-
er in the wake of Rousey’s first
loss is that being in the Rousey
business, while lucrative, pre-
vents other stars from devel-
oping. The company needs to
embrace the idea of being in
the women’s MMA business
— which, to be fair, they seem
to do a better job of down at
strawweight. Maybe it’s a fear
of ticking off Rousey (her and
Tate are, after all, bitter rivals),
but the division could easily
boast two or three stars: Rous-
ey, Tate, and now Holm, who
has had more media attention
than ever before over the past
couple weeks, and who has
handled with admirably.
If Tate and her potential star-
dom is a wasted opportunity,
however, then the company’s
handling of one of it’s biggest
stars ever, Georges St. Pierre,
is outright criminal. GSP has
been publicly mulling a come-
back, talking about having a
training camp, yet again, Dana
White — who should be work-
ing in the company’s best inter-
ests — has managed to rain on
the parade, saying he “laughs”
at the comeback talk, and feels
GSP isn’t hungry enough to re-
turn.
Now, there’s a big question as
to whether GSP should come
back, as he’s one of the only
high level fighters to go out
on top, as champ, with no
unavenged losses (sorry, Hen-
dricks fans, but at the end of
the day, a “close” fight/rob-
bery is still a loss). He has also
taken a ton of damage in the
