After earlier wardrobe malfunction, Miesha Tate 'doubled-up' on Reebok sports bra

Miesha Tate

When Miesha Tate heard about a wardrobe malfunction earlier in the night at UFC on FOX 16, she decided to take a safety precaution.

At this past Saturday’s event in Chicago, Elizabeth Phillips (5-3 MMA, 1-2 UFC) picked up a victory over fellow bantamweight Jessamyn Duke (3-3 MMA, 1-3 UFC). However, social media was quickly flush with screen grabs and video clips after Phillips’ breast was briefly exposed during a scramble.

Prior to the night’s co-headliner, in which Tate (17-5 MMA, 4-2 UFC) picked up an impressive decision victory over fellow contender Jessica Eye (11-3 MMA, 1-2 UFC), “Cupcake” heard the buzz.

“I doubled-up after I saw that,” Tate said today during in-studio MMAjunkie Radio appearance. “I didn’t see it, but I heard about it. I was like, ‘I’m putting on another sports bra, and I don’t care.’ It was a Reebok (sports bra), but it wasn’t part of the uniform.

“I was like, ‘I don’t care. I’m putting it on. You can’t make me go out there after seeing that fight – with just one (sports bra) on.’ I doubled up.”

The sports bras are produced by Reebok, which recently signed a multi-year deal with the UFC to be its fight-night uniform (“kit”) provider. They’re, of course, designed to provide a uniform and consistent look across all the organization’s weight classes, but Tate said some extra care needs to be taken with the female divisions.

“There’s definitely some input (I’ll share),” she said. “We need a thicker band around the base (of the bra), to kind of make sure it stays down. It’s just kind of (too) soft. … You don’t want to have to worry about that kind of stuff in the middle of a fight.”

Reebok officials weren’t available to comment on any potential changes to the sports bras.

“My heart goes out to Elizabeth,” Tate said. “I feel so bad for her. I mean, she was just completely exposed. … It was all over the Internet. There are pictures of it all over.

“I suggest to anyone who’s posted that picture and put it up, either take it down or blur it out. Have some humanity. The poor girl, she didn’t choose (to do) that, to fight in that. It’s not her fault. Have some decency and respect the poor girl.”

For complete coverage of UFC on FOX 16, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

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