How Miesha Tate worked her way back into women's bantamweight title picture

CHICAGO -- You don’t exactly need to put Miesha Tate in an armbar to get her to agree to another fight with her most bitter rival, Ronda Rousey.

So Tate, having racked up her fourth consecutive victory Saturday night with a dominant performance against Jessica Eye in the co-feature bout at UFC on FOX 16, was succinct about her thoughts on the third fight with Rousey, which UFC president Dana White said is coming her way.

“I love punching Ronda in the face,” Tate said at the post-fight news conference at United Center.

Two years ago, the idea of another bantamweight title shot for Tate seemed farfetched. She was finished by Cat Zingano in a bout to determine the next contender for Rousey’s title in June 2013. She lucked into the title shot when Zingano injured her knee. Then at UFC 168 she lost to Rousey, who also defeated her for the Strikeforce belt in 2012.

But two years after that second defeat, Tate has shown remarkable resilience and improvement as a fighter, and that was enough to convince White that Tate deserves another crack at the belt (assuming he’s not simply using the prospect of a Tate rematch to steer Rousey toward a fight with Cris “Cyborg” Justino).

“Miesha is such a durable individual, she’ll stand in front of you and take what you’ve got, because she was getting picked apart in that first round,” White said. "She keeps coming forward to land what she has to land, or get you to the ground to do what she has to in order to win. She did it again, tonight. She’s worked her way back to Ronda Rousey.”

Of course, there’s one minor detail getting in the way, here: Rousey defends her belt next Saturday night against Bethe Correia in the main event of UFC 190. But White, by openly talking about Rousey vs. Tate, is apparently among those who feel that a Rousey win over Correia is highly likely.

And Tate, for her part, is much improved over the fighter who stepped into the cage two years ago. Tate has long been popular for her ability to adjust on the fly, which she demonstrated late in the first round against Eye, when she changed her timing and dropped Eye with a thunderous right hand that altered the fight’s trajectory. She’s also been admired for her sheer will to win, and, indeed got the loudest ovation of any fighter at United Center on the evening.

But the improved striking was the most, well, striking aspect of her performance. Tate gave Rousey her toughest challenge at UFC 168 before falling in the third round, the only time Rousey’s ever been pushed beyond the first. She found her most success in the fight in the standup, and she believes that will be the key when they meet up again.

“I feel like I made some necessary changes in this camp and have become a better athlete,” Tate said. “I feel like I added my strength and conditioning program, and I feel so much stronger, so much more powerful, especially where when I’m fighting Ronda. She doesn’t like to be hit, and I need to be able to deliver that finishing power on the feet.”

Saturday night was unusual in another respect. Tate and her boyfriend, bantamweight Bryan Caraway, both fought at UFC on FOX 16, the first time in their respective UFC tenures that both have appeared on the same bill. About two hours before her bout with Eye, Tate came out to the arena floor and cornered Caraway for unanimous decision victory over Eddie Wineland.

Later, Caraway admitted he didn’t want Tate in his corner for the bout, simply because of the emotional toll it could have taken when Tate should have been preparing for her bout with Eye.

“I actually didn’t want her to corner me,” Caraway said. “I was worried. I didn’t want her to have an adrenaline dump at all. Just from the crowd or seeing everything or if something happened during my fight. I didn’t want her to worry. Even if she was mentally OK I didn’t want that natural hormone to have that adrenaline dump and affect her in her fight.”

Tate, however, insisted upon it.

“I was prepared to put it behind me either way,” Tate said. “Once he won, it was great. But I knew that, no matter what happened, I was going to separate my fight from his fight emotionally. That’s something we get a lot of practice with anyway, being a couple inside the gym. We have to separate things. It’s something that I feel like I’m really good at.”

In the end, it all worked out. Caraway won for the fourth time in his past five fights; Tate regrouped, won her bout with Eye, and apparently has a title shot on the way, whether that’s against Rousey or Correia.

“A bigger goal for me would be a win over Ronda, but in the big picture, my biggest goal is getting gold,” Tate said. “I want to say before I retire that I was the UFC world champion, so at the end of the day it doesn’t matter who has the belt. That’s the biggest goal.”

Follow Dave Doyle on Twitter: @DaveDoyleMMA