Despite coaching Raquel Pennington on 'TUF,' Miesha Tate sees a 'a little bit of mystery' at UFC 205

Former champ Miesha Tate is no stranger to Raquel Pennington, but that doesn’t mean she’s got her UFC 205 opponent totally pegged.

After coaching Pennington (8-5 MMA, 5-2 UFC) on the 18th season of “The Ultimate Fighter” – and training with the pupil ahead of her UFC 168 rematch with then-champ Ronda Rousey – Tate (18-6 MMA, 5-3 UFC) thinks their bantamweight scrap at Saturday’s star-studded Madison Square Garden event might still hold some surprises.

“I believe Raquel is the kind of fighter that’s constantly evolving,” Tate told our partners at Champions.co. “She is a very tenacious person, and I’ve seen her training when I coached on ‘The Ultimate Fighter.’ She was the first one to really want to train with the guys, she’s tough, she’s durable, and she’s got some great qualities about herself.

“There’s still a bit of mystery. You still don’t know what it’s like to fight someone at 100 percent until you do so. Even though we have trained here and there and I have coached her and stuff, I can’t say that I completely know what to expect when I step in the cage.”

Ranked No. 3 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s bantamweight rankings, Tate takes on No. 15 Pennington in the first fight of UFC 205’s pay-per-view main card, which follows prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass.

This is Tate’s first fight since dropping the belt via submission to current champion Amanda Nunes in UFC 200’s headliner. Nunes is now set for her first belt defense, against former champ Rousey, at Dec. 30’s UFC 207 event in Las Vegas.

Reclaiming the crown she took from Holly Holm at UFC 196, Tate said, is obviously a desire. But determining just how that may happen is hard to tell in the turbulent bantamweight class.

“People have asked me, ‘Who do you want to fight next?’” Tate said. “I’m like, well, there’s a lot of shaking out to do. With Ronda coming back – is she going to stay back? (You have to consider) if she loses, if she wins, Amanda, the belt, where is it going to be.

“Obviously I’d like my next fight to be a title fight. That’s what I would prefer. But it depends on a lot of different things. I just don’t want to get ahead of myself. The only thing that I know is Nov. 12, Raquel Pennington, New York, UFC 205. So, that’s it for the moment.”

Check out the full interview above.

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