Miesha Tate wants to take on Cris Cyborg in a grappling match

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Former UFC and Strikeforce champ Miesha Tate is considering coming out of retirement and is interested in a grappling matchup with Cris Cyborg.

Since retiring from MMA in 2016,  Miesha has become a mother of two and a Vice President for ONE Championship. After a brief period of living over in Singapore where ONE is based, Tate recently came back home to Washington state for the holidays. As she gets to spend some time with her family, she is then planning to relocate to Las Vegas where she spent the majority of her fight career.

In 2016, Miesha surprised the MMA world by retiring from the sport following a loss to Raquel Pennington at UFC 205. At only 30 years old, and just a few months removed from winning the UFC bantamweight title, Tate was walking away from the sport, ostensibly still in her prime. Tate cited a lack of competitive fire as one of the primary reasons for walking away from the sport when she did, but now, four years later, it seems that fire is starting to be rekindled.

Miesha Tate wants to Comeback

Speaking with James Lynch recently, Tate discussed the possibility of returning to competition in the form of a grappling match against current Bellator featherweight champion Cris Cyborg.

“I have six (fights left on my UFC contract),” she said. “So if I wanted to fight, which I’m not, I wouldn’t be able to fight anywhere else. So you wouldn’t see me pop up and fight for ONE Championship or anybody else because obviously, I can’t legally do that. I would like to grapple, and you know, Cyborg did call me out to a grappling match. That piques my interest.”

“It would be amazing,” she said. “I think if we want to make it happen, we have to figure out the legalities of it, because my fight contract is owned by the UFC, right? She fights for Bellator, and I work (for) and represent ONE Championship.”

Since retiring from the sport, Miesha has managed to keep herself busy. In 2018 she joined ONE Championship as Vice President, brand ambassador, and color commentator. She has also given birth to two children and co-hosts a weekly show on SiriusXM Radio. With enough time removed from the grind of competition though, she admits that now she’s feeling the urge to get back in the swing of things without getting too serious about it.

“Right now I’m just focused on having fun,” Tate said. “This is something I wasn’t able to do in the latter part of my career. The last couple of years of my career were strenuous and a lot of that had to do with my personal life. I wasn’t having fun, I was exhausted, to be honest. Mentally exhausted before I even got to the fights. Some I was able to bring, and other ones I wasn’t. But I want to compete again, I want to grapple, and I want to get in great shape, and I want to have fun, and that’s what I’m doing.”

As Tate pointed out, there are numerous hurdles for making her MMA return, however, the former bantamweight champion is still only 34 years old and is a big name in the sport. If she wanted to make a return, there would certainly be plenty of opportunities to do so. However, Tate doesn’t seem interested in that, but she also isn’t going to say it will never happen.

“Nothing is ever completely closed in my book,” Tate said. “I am somebody who follows my heart and I follow my passion, and that could change at a moment’s notice. I am the kind of person who – I’m kind of all over the place, to be honest. Not kind of, I am. I am all over the place. I picked up in less than six months and moved my whole family to Singapore at the drop of a hat. That’s who I am. If something speaks to me, speaks to my heart, then I’m all in.”

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