Raquel Pennington says UFC 205 win over Miesha Tate moves her from dark horse to contender

Raquel Pennington didn’t have an easy task in any way when she stood across from Miesha Tate at UFC 205. For starters, Tate was her former mentor and coach on “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 18. In addition, Tate was looking to rebound from losing the women’s bantamweight title in her previous outing.

Pennington (9-5 MMA, 6-2 UFC) got the job done, however, dominating Tate (18-7 MMA, 5-4 UFC) to win a unanimous decision when the women kicked off the pay-per-view main card at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Tate announced her retirement following the loss, crediting Pennington as “the future” of the division while hanging up her gloves.

Following her victory, Pennington said she respected the decision, even if she didn’t fully agree with it.

“I mean, this is a huge opportunity,” Pennington said. “It’s an honor to be here and fight on this New York card. If she’s going to go out with a retirement, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with going out with a loss. But Miesha has nothing to keep her head down about. She has every reason to keep her head high.

“Everybody says Ronda (Rousey) is the face of women’s MMA, but I believe that Miesha belongs up there too. She’s done some wonderful things and put on some wonderful performances. This card, it’s a huge opportunity to make history. If this is the card she wanted to go out on, she has all my respect.”

Pennington is now riding a four-fight winning streak and has beat some of the biggest names in the division. In knocking off Tate, who entered the fight ranked No. 2 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s bantamweight rankings. She’s now likely to make a big leap from her current No. 15 slot.

The question is: how far is Pennington from a title shot. She believes she is right there in the title picture after knocking off the former champ.

“I’ve always been the dark horse in women’s MMA,” Pennington said. “I don’t think I’m far away. I’ve earned my spot to be here. I’ve never had an easy fight throughout my career, I fought all the top opponents. A lot of people are fooled by my record but a lot of that was due to my own mental game up here. For this fight, I had a phenomenal set of coaches in my corner. I’m just proving to myself from here on out. I’m right there.”

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