When you look Miesha Tate square in the face, and she looks back with a smirk, it’s hard to ignore the warmth she radiates. It's as if she's a lifelong friend, someone who grew up next door to you. But then there are also the moments where she looks down and over her shoulder, perhaps at the mention of say, Ronda Rousey. In those moments, when the color in her eyes dissipates and her lips taut, you remember Miesha Tate is not your friend. She’s a fighter. A fighter with a brand new, shiny championship belt that she won from Holly Holm—and one that she'll be defending at UFC 200 against Amanda Nunes.

Going into this title fight with Holly Holm, did it feel like this may be your last chance to win the belt?

It felt like that could have been my last opportunity. The fact that a title fight was awarded to me and then taken away when I was replaced by Holly, it really made me feel like I couldn’t take this opportunity for granted at all. If I lost to Holly, there’s no saying that in the amount of time I potentially have left in my career that I would get back to that title contention spot.

What was that feeling like when everything is lining up for Ronda Rousey vs. Miesha Tate, round three, and then in swoops Holly Holm to take your spot?

Heartbreaking. Honestly. I put so much into this sport and I don’t take that sort of opportunity lightly. I was training my butt off. To find out that I wasn’t going to get that fight after I thought for sure I would was pretty heartbreaking.

Is your rivalry with Ronda really that personal? Or has some of it been played up for The Ultimate Fighter and to sell tickets?

There’s no facade, it’s very real. I just don’t get along with Ronda and we don't see eye to eye on anything. We’re just two completely different people. People can tell that our rivalry is very raw. It’s very, very real. Whether they side with her or they side with me, they care about that fight.

I imagine it has to be hard to even be friends with anyone in this sport.

Definitely. There’s a lot of girls in the division I really like but I always feel like there’s this underlying sense of a potential matchup, potential competition. It adds a different element. Even if you do really like someone, even if you want to be close friends with them, it’s kind of like, “Yeah, but if I really become good friends with this person, how much more difficult does it become to want to beat them up?” And you know, it’s not even the beating up part, honestly. I spar my friends hard and I’ll beat them up and then we laugh about it afterwards. Or they get a good shot in on me, no problem.