New UFC champ Miesha Tate: Baby-minded Rousey 'doesn't sound very motivated'

The first shot has been fired in the trilogy grudge match between Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey, and it has come from the new champion.

Tate (18-5 MMA, 5-2 UFC) this past Saturday put Holly Holm (10-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) to sleep with a rear-naked choke in a fifth-round comeback to win the women’s bantamweight title in the UFC 196 co-main event at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The main card aired on pay-per-view following prelims on FOX Sports 1 and UFC Fight Pass.

The win set Tate up for a third fight against former champ Ronda Rousey (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) later this year. Rousey submitted Tate with a first-round armbar in 2012 to take her Strikeforce title. Then in late 2013, she submitted her a second time to defend her UFC belt. But this past November, Rousey was knocked out by Holm at UFC 193 and lost her championship in a shocking upset.

On Monday, after telling the “TMZ Sports” syndicated TV show that she was “on top of the world” following her long-awaited title win, Tate said she can’t be sure how soon she’ll fight Rousey for the third time – this time as champion.

“I don’t even know what she’s thinking right now,” Tate told the show. “It seems like her motivation to stick around was to have Travis Browne’s babies, so I don’t know. … That doesn’t sound like a very motivated comeback kind of a fighter in my opinion. Every time I’ve ever lost, my motivation is to get back up on the horse and fight someone again and work my way back to the top.”

This past month, Rousey told host Ellen DeGeneres that she briefly considered suicide after she lost to Holm in Australia before seeing her boyfriend, UFC heavyweight Travis Browne, and realizing she wanted to have children with him.

Prior to UFC 196, UFC President Dana White said the Tate-Holm winner would fight Rousey in a rematch, and he stuck to that plan after the event.

If Tate one day fights Holm again, though, it sounds like it will be a lot different of a rivalry than the one she has with Rousey – which falls under heated at best, and hated at worst.

“(My boyfriend) Bryan (Caraway) and her husband are really good friends, too,” Tate said. “If they lived here, we’d probably be (close). They’re just so nice, just so championship material. … I really respect that woman. She’s amazing. Hopefully she’ll get the message that I’m thankful she stepped in there. She could’ve waited for that fight with Ronda, but she said, ‘No, I want to be an active champion,’ and she has my respect.”

For complete coverage of UFC 196, check out the UFC Events section of the site.