Miesha Tate can understand where Nate Diaz is coming from after the drama that took place at the UFC 25th anniversary press conference.
Diaz is set to meet Dustin Poirier in a lightweight showdown at the upcoming UFC 230 pay-per-view event. Following the UFC 25 Anniversary press conference, Diaz went on record by stating that he’s not sure if he will fight at this event.
It might be due to the end of that press conference ending with the announcement of UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov fighting former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor at the upcoming UFC 229 event. Diaz did not take kindly to his return being overshadowed and led to him storming out of the press conference.
Tate talked about the situation on Sirius XM Fight Nation over the weekend where she noted that she would have felt exactly the same way as Stockton’s finest.
“I would feel the same way as Nate does,” Tate said (transcript courtesy of MMAFighting). “Nate has a different personality than I do, he’s expressive in a different way, but of course [I would be mad]. I remember when I threatened retirement because I was so pissed off that they had promised that I would fight Ronda and then they ended up switching that out and having Holly [Holm] but they didn’t tell me. It’s the same thing that happened to Nate, essentially, it’s just that Nate was in front of everybody. I was pissed too, believe me.”
“I was mad but they don’t care,” Tate said. “They know that they have a strong arm in a lot of this and it doesn’t really matter. Or if they do care, it’s not enough. Like, ‘I’m sorry but this is what you have to do for business.’ You can’t really argue with them. They’re the ones who are gonna make the final decision, so what can you do? What can Nate do?
“For me it was a whirlwind of emotions, just trying to decide what I even wanted to do next because I felt like it was so unfair. Then it was just coming to terms with, ‘Well, life’s not fair. What do you want to do about it? Are you ready to retire now or not?’ And the truth was I wasn’t ready to retire at that time. Obviously I still went on to fight Jessica Eye after that and went on to win the title against Holly later, so I wasn’t ready to retire but it was just the frustration.”
Tate has been happily retired since losing to Raquel Pennington at UFC 205. The former women’s bantamweight champion walked away from the sport and recently started a family as she welcomed her first daughter into the world.
The UFC 230 pay-per-view event is set to take place on Saturday, November 3, 2018 at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, New York City. The main card is slated to air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
“Having a talk with Dana White helps but it still stings because he’s not the one to have a filter on,” Tate concluded. “The conversation was like, ‘Yeah, but you’re not Ronda Rousey.’
“It’s part of just recognizing that. I have a different value than Ronda and hers is what it is and mine is what it is so I have to continue to work to build mine even more. What else can I do? Get back to the grind. You just try to leverage yourself as much as you can but there’s a point where you don’t have the leverage. You don’t have the final leverage, the UFC does.”
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