50 clean drug tests later — 53 to date, per the USADA athlete test database — and former UFC bantamweight champ Miesha Tate has her honorary letterman jacket celebrating her status as a clean athlete.
Ahead of her return to action against Julia Avila at UFC Austin, Tate (19-9) explained what it all meant to her.
“The USADA app, it’s a time-consuming thing, but I think it’s important. So whereabouts, right? I move around a lot, and so I’m constantly having to update that,” explained Tate, moments after being honored at the event’s media day. “But it’s worth it, because I want to know that who I’m fighting is having to do the same thing, and is clean.”
“This jacket for me, I know I’m accountable and I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. So this is, it’s a nice way to be recognized for the hard work.”
The public, added Tate, doesn’t always get to see that “we have to clock in 365 days a year. Regardless of where we’re going, what we’re doing, we have to be accountable for our time and our space. And I do appreciate that it’s mutually appreciated.”
Tate, who claimed bantamweight gold against Holly Holm at UFC 196 in 2016, was asked about those who claim they don’t care if an opponent is on PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) or not. That sort of self-belief is arguably as rampant in the sport of MMA as doping itself.
“I think that people who don’t regard how much performance enhancing drugs can make this an unsafe place, or that they would simply be able to just be better, they probably are a bit naive to how much performance enhancing drugs can make you into something that is beyond any realistic human capability,” replied Tate. “And when you’re talking about a full contact sport where you’re taking blows to the head and the body, as well as the veracity of submissions and things like that, I just think it’s not a good thing to have some people cheating and other people playing by the rules. It needs to be clean across the board. So for me, it’s definitely worth making sure that I’m accountable, so that the people that I’m fighting are also accountable.”
