Former UFC title contender Chael Sonnen is disappointed that UFC is booking Miesha Tate vs. Ronda Rousey 3 before they do Holly Holm vs. Rousey 2. In an interview with Submision Radio, Sonnen explained why the rematch between Holm and Rousey should happen first, regardless of who has the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship right now.
“What the UFC will do is they would make Tate versus Rousey 3. But what I would do, is I would just leave the title out of it completely and I would do an immediate rematch with Ronda versus Holly Holm. The way the minds work at Zuffa is, ‘look we got UFC 200, we gotta put the belt on the line, we gotta put our top stars against whoever the champ is’. I disagree. I think sometimes you just gotta make a fight. You know, Anderson versus Bisping. There was no title on the line, but that was a fight. Conor versus Diaz – which currently holds every UFC record there is, at least on pay-per-view. Not live gate, but pay-per-view – there was no title on the line.
“It was just the fight that people wanted to see. Because I think sometimes you just gotta make the fight. But I know the way that they think over there and they think, ‘well, we lost that fight because Miesha’s now champ. Now it’s Miesha versus Ronda,’ so that’s at least what will be offered. I would just hope that somebody in the room at least makes the suggestion of “why do we have to do it for the title? Why can’t we just do the fight everyone wants to see?”
UFC President Dana White has confirmed that Miesha Tate’s first bantamweight title defense will be against Ronda Rousey later this year.
