Miesha Tate defends ‘dynamic’ Pennington vs. Bueno Silva fight: ‘You can’t claim the main event was any more exciting’
Miesha Tate doesn’t get the criticism surrounding the UFC 297 co-main event.
The vacant woman’s bantamweight title was on the line Saturday at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto when Raquel Pennington faced Mayra Bueno Silva. Pennington (16-8 MMA, 13-5 UFC) outlasted Bueno Silva (10-3-1 MMA, 5-3-1 UFC) to become champion.
There wasn’t too much buzz surrounding their fight in the lead-up, which led to an honest admission from Bueno Silva about the matchup itself. Headliner Sean Strickland, who lost his middleweight title to Dricus Du Plessis, implied that he was carrying the women on the card.
Former bantamweight champion Tate had quite a bit to say when reacting to Pennington’s win, as well as Strickland’s close loss to Du Plessis.
Scroll below to see Tate’s comments.
Tate throws shade Strickland's way
Damn this is a good fight, where’s Sean Strickland when you wanna show him some badass WMMA?!! Oh yea…. He’s warming up #ufc297
— Miesha Tate (@MieshaTate) January 21, 2024
Tate defends co-main
Man you guys are a tough crowd that fight was way better than I had anticipated, Raquel had such a long layoff I thought it would take her longer to find her rhythm. fight was busy and multiple sub attempts. Rocky almost KOd Mayra at one point. u all not paying attention #ufc297.
— Miesha Tate (@MieshaTate) January 21, 2024
Tate continues to defend the co-main
Agreed, this was not a bad fight. They even stayed pretty busy in the clinch. I’d like to see you all do it better https://t.co/9xu3T9wH2T
— Miesha Tate (@MieshaTate) January 21, 2024
Tate gives Bueno Silva the benefit of doubt
Well didn’t we know that would happen, Mayra is young and doesn’t really pace herself which I think is very exciting but hard to hold that over 5 rounds. She did well for her first 5 round fight it’s not easy and a lot of pressure https://t.co/XV7m9ekJfP
— Miesha Tate (@MieshaTate) January 21, 2024
Tate preferred the co-main over the main event
Well no disrespect but you can’t claim the main event was any more exciting. Solid fights but if we must compare I thought the co main was much more dynamic and much closer to finishes multiple times https://t.co/lvPncYBvTi
— Miesha Tate (@MieshaTate) January 21, 2024
Tate thinks booing crowd were too harsh
That makes sense bc I feel like this fight was consistently delivering, I agree it’s not the best fight we have ever seen but it was far from trash. https://t.co/8VulrNLOmB
— Miesha Tate (@MieshaTate) January 21, 2024
