...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Former Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Champion Miesha Tate did not want to tap out to Ronda Rousey on Saturday night. She fought through a very vicious armbar attempt early on in their Championship fight in Columbus, Ohio, and had a couple of submission attempts herself in a fantastic fight before getting caught once again in Rousey's clutches.
Most human beings at this point would have given up the fight, tapped out, and tried to walk home with their arm intact. Tate, however, truly did not want to concede this fight to a woman who had become a major antagonist for her in the weeks leading up to the fight.
Tate held on as much as she could as Rousey torqued and dislocated her arm at the elbow, making for one of the most brutal visuals the sport has ever seen in any capacity. Still, Tate tried to fight on. Finally, as Rousey continued bending the arm in ways an arm should never be bent, Tate finally succumbed to the hold and submitted.
The extent of the damage isn't quite clear just yet, but Tate did rule out one feared injury in comments made to Ariel Helwani at MMAFighting.com on Sunday night.
"I had X-Rays last night," Tate said. "No bones are broken, which I already knew. Other than that, I have to get an MRI to find out anything further."
While it's certainly positive that no bones were broken, there was almost assuredly some ligament damage to the arm, the extent of which will be revealed when Tate undergoes said MRI.
Penick's Analysis: Tate's heart and pain tolerance in that fight were astounding, but it was certainly ill-advised to try to fight through that second armbar. Though she didn't break anything, the arm was being torqued so severely in the wrong direction that it's impossible to believe that no damage was done. An MRI is sure to show something damaged, if not torn entirely, in that left elbow, and that's unfortunate because it could have been avoided. I understand her desire not to submit to Rousey, but it may truly cost her a significant amount of time in recovery. I do admire what she did in that fight, and she had some success against the very dangerous new Champion, but when you're caught like that, sometimes conceding is the right move. I hope an MRI doesn't show anything too severe, but I'm sure most will be fearing the worst from that.
[Miesha Tate photo by of Getty Images]
DON'T GO YET... WE SUGGEST THESE MMATORCH ARTICLES, TOO!
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
