Former Strikeforce women’s champion Miesha Tate attacks Bellator over treatment of Zoila Gurgel
Dana White tweets, "Tate is SO tough!!!!"
Former Strikeforce women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate went to Twitter to vent her frustrations with how rival promotion Bellator is treating their reigning women’s world champion Zoila Gurgel. This weeks event for the promotion, Bellator 78, is set to take place in Dayton, near Gurgel’s current hometown of Cincinnati, but the champion is part of the non-televised portion of the card. The main card of Bellator 78 features two welterweight tournament semifinal matches, as well as a pair of non-tournament bouts. Check out what Tate had to say below:
“I cannot believe [Bellator] would allow [its] champion to be placed on the UN televised undercard in her hometown. A champion is a champion regardless if she is fighting up a weight, u use her image to promote the posters & then put her on the undercard?! Blows my mind. This is the 2nd time too you have done this I tell you what I would rather never fight MMA again then fight for u under @BellatorMMA banner…. The amount of disrespect you have given @ZoilaGurgel is disgusting.”
Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney released a statement to MMAFighting with his reasoning for the decision:
“Zoila’s been plagued by injury after injury over the last 19 months, having not fought since March, 2011,” he wrote. “We felt that the best road back for her did not include rushing her into a major fight against one of the top-ranked women in the world. This is not a world title fight as it’s made significantly north of the 115 weight limit where she holds our title. Depending on how Zoila feels and performs on Friday, we can then determine the next appropriate step back.”
Comments
Loading ...
