Why Miesha Tate would rather have had Ronda Rousey's MMA career over Amanda Nunes'

Miesha Tate was given a dilemma on her recent appearance on Sirius XM Fight Nation: whose career would you rather have? Ronda Rousey's or Amanda Nunes's?

It’s no secret that Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey didn’t see eye to eye during their respective MMA careers, but Tate has always given props to her old rival when the topic of Rousey’s career success comes up.

And it happened again Wednesday when Tate was given an interesting hypothetical scenario by “MMA Tonight” co-host Ryan McKinnell. The question: “Whose career would you rather have had? Ronda Rousey’s or Amanda Nunes’?”

Tate revealed her answer is different today than it would have been 18 months ago.

“You know, this is such a weird question,” Tate said, “because I feel like before I had my daughter, I for sure would have been like, ‘I’d rather have Amanda’s,’ to be honest. But then looking at everything that is to gain from the popularity and securing my daughter’s future, it’s almost like, how do you do it all?

“If you’d said something like Ronda hadn’t earned all of this … you know (but) Ronda did. She won, she did everything, she dominated, she did a lot of great things. She just got 100-fold recognition for everything she did.”

Tate had quite the fighting career herself, of course, one in which she captured bantamweight titles in both Strikeforce and the UFC. Her incredible last-gasp submission of Holly Holm at UFC 196 to this day one of the most dramatic title changes in MMA history.

Now Tate is a vice president for surging Asian MMA organization ONE Championship, as well as a prominent voice on Sirius XM. But if she had to put her own career to one side and adopt the career of either women’s MMA trailblazer Rousey or arguably the greatest female fighter of all time, Nunes, Tate said the guaranteed return for her efforts swung her decision.

“Let’s take the names out of it,” Tate said. “Would you rather win every bout – let’s assume we’re talking greatest of all time – while (Ronda) was winning and she gets 100 percent return on it, or would you rather put 100 percent effort into it and get 50 percent return on it?

“So I’m looking at this, and I’m gonna say, you know what? I’d rather have Ronda’s career. If you ask me who I’d rather be, I would say Amanda. But if you’re talking about I’m gonna put 110 percent into this and what do you want to get out of it? Do you want to get 100 percent out of it, or do you want to get 50 percent out of it? I”m gonna say I want 100 percent.”

Against both Rousey and Nunes, Tate went a combined 0-3, losing to Rousey once in Strikeforce and once in the UFC. Tate lost her UFC bantamweight title in her first defense against Nunes in July 2016.

Four months later, Tate retired after a loss to Raquel Pennington at UFC 205.

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