Dana White: Ronda Rousey ‘Will Fight Whoever Has The Belt’
Former women’s bantamweight champion “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey will get a title shot upon her return to the UFC.
The promotion’s president, Dana White, confirmed the news on ESPN’s Beadle & Shelburne radio show on Sunday.
“[Rousey] is definitely part of the discussion [to fight on Nov. 12 in New York] and she will fight whoever has that belt. I think Miesha, she’s fighting at [UFC 200], she might fight again before that. She wants to fight. We’ll see what happens. Miesha has been the No. 2 baddest woman in the world for years. For her to stay active right now, makes sense.”
And staying active the champion will. According to White, if Tate wins her next match, she could fight again before meeting Rousey later in the year.
“What’s cool about that 135-pound division is that everybody is fighting right now. The only one not fighting is Holly. Miesha, depending on how she fights Nunes — who is very, very tough — if anything crazy happens and she comes out of that fight with a quick win, 100 percent healthy, she could turn around and fight again and then fight Ronda.”
The news is, of course, contingent on Rousey actually returning to active competition, though.
Ronda Rousey was originally supposed to get the first crack at Miesha Tate’s newly-won bantamweight championship in July at UFC 200.
However, according to White, Ronda was busy acting in the remake of Roadhouse. Though filming would have ended before July, it would not have given Rousey ample time to prepare for her match.
“She could do both, but the question is, should she do both? She could do both, but why should she? The filming is in a time frame where she’d finish before 200, but it would be cutting it too close.”
Rousey is now scheduled to make her long-awaited return in November or December, one year after her last match.
If Ronda and Miesha meet in the cage again, they will certainly have plenty of history behind them.
The two have faced each other twice before. The first time they met was for the now-defunct Strikeforce women’s bantamweight championship, and the second time was for the UFC bantamweight championship.
In both contests, Ronda utilized her lethal armbar to earn the victory.
Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate have also had one of the longest lasting and most vocal rivalries of any mixed martial artist in UFC history. In fact, during the taping of The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rousey vs Team Tate, White complained about their mutual animosity.
“Miesha and Ronda hate each other. It’s literally crazy drama every day. It’s irritating.”
“It’s Ken-Tito type stuff,” White said, referring to the equally heated TUF squabbles between former UFC fighters, Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz. “I don’t even know if some of the stuff will make TV. Those two do not like each other, and their camps do not like each other. And it’s just pure [expletive] mayhem every day.”
When Rousey lost her title in a brutal, one-sided match against former bantamweight champion (and the woman Miesha defeated to become the current champion) Holly Holm, Tate was one of the first to rub salt in her rival’s wounds.
Yet before Tate vs Rousey III is even considered by the UFC brass, the current bantamweight champion must make it through her first scheduled title defense against Amanda Nunes at UFC 200.
After that, she may have to fight another opponent. This could be a rematch against Holly Holm or the only other woman in the UFC to hold a victory over Tate, Cat Zingano.
And if she does not jump each one of those hurdles, Rousey may have to fight someone else for the first title fight in her UFC career where she is not the champion.
Either way, Ronda Rousey’s return to the octagon will no doubt sell plenty of tickets.
[Image via Jae C. Hong/AP Images]
