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Cape Town - For the women's UFC bantamweight champion her road to octagon glory was a long a tedious one full of ups and downs bumps and bruises.
While most would not have the drive or the determination to push on through the bad times both inside and outside the cage, Miesha Tate did just that and it paid off.
Her never say die mentality is what secured her both a StrikeForce title and most recently, in her comeback win over former champion Holly Holm, a UFC title is now around her waist.
On Monday the new champ sat down and had lunch with members of the media to discuss her opponent at UFC 200 Amanda Nunes. Miesha believes that the lack of heart will ultimately be Nunes downfall.
"She's never faced anyone like me. I also think her mentality, her mental, that's a big weakness, honestly. I don't think that Amanda really likes to get hit. I think she thinks she likes to get it, but I don't think she does. I think she likes to be delivering. And if she's winning, it's great. But when she's not, when she's put in that spot of adversity, she tends to break. I don't even know if it's so much a question of cardio as it like, how bad does she really want it? So i think there will come a point in the fight where that becomes a question in her mind and it won't be a question in my mind. Wherever we are -- whether we're on the feet or the ground -- I'm just gonna take it to her."
Nunes (12-4) is a winner of three straight inside the Octagon.
With finishes of Shayna Baszler and Sara Mcmann on top of a dominant unanimous decision over Valentina Schevchenko, her title shot is well deserved. Since joining the UFC back in 2013 Nunes has gone on a 4-1 run with three wins by way of stoppage. Her loan defeat was at the hands of Cat Zingano who is one of the worlds most formidable bantamweight fighters and came back from losing round 1 to stop Nunes in the third.
While the Brazilian is a rising star the only real knock against her name is that she has the tendency to fade during fights. Many point out that "The Lioness" may not have the greatest cardio in the division and Tate has taken notice but believes that Nunes has made some adjustments to her training to ensure she doesn't fade.
"I know that's a tendency of hers. It seems that she definitely hits a wall in fights, but i think it would be a really piss poor plan to just count on someone getting tired. Honestly. So i have to assume that she's making changes, she's making those proper adjustments, she's adding things that she needs to her camp to get her conditioning and cardio where it needs to be."
Miesha Tate and Amanda Nunes will duke it out on Saturday night on the stacked UFC 200 card which takes place from the brand new T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas.
Sport24 will have live minute-by-minute updates on our Twitter page @sport24 all night long starting at 00:00 (CAT).
