Dana White explains why they chose Holly Holm over Miesha Tate
source | LATimes.com
The movement to appoint former boxing champion Holly Holm as Ronda Rousey’s next opponent began in conference-room talks, Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White told the Los Angeles Times on Friday.
Immediately following Rousey’s 34-second knockout victory over Bethe Correia in Brazil on Aug. 1, both White and Rousey spoke as if it was a foregone conclusion that top-ranked contender Miesha Tate would get a third crack at Rousey (12-0) for the UFC women’s bantamweight title.
“We were talking about Miesha from the start, then as we started sitting around we were saying, ‘Everyone has seen the Miesha fight already,’ ” White said, referring to Rousey’s third-round armbar submission victory over Tate on Dec. 28, 2013, and her first-round armbar submission of Tate in the Strikeforce organization in March 2012.
“A third fight in a rivalry usually comes after the stuff we’d see in [Arturo] Gatti-[Micky] Ward,” White said of the classic boxing trilogy. “With Miesha, the result has been the same twice. Everyone’s already seen that fight.”