Just four months on from her famous title win against Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm has been forced to relinquish her UFC Bantamweight belt to Miesha Tate.
It was a battle between two fighters with boxing and wrestling specialties respectively, and in the end Tate's ferocious ground and pound grappling earned her the victory with a fifth round submission.
When you consider how the judges had scored the fight up to that moment, it is evident that Miesha had no option but to employ such a tactic.
Judges had it right in the Tate-Holm fight. Tate had the right mindset in the final round. #UFC196 pic.twitter.com/Mz6FNs2FPb
— Steven Grossi (@SteveOGrossi) March 6, 2016
As the figures reveal, had Holm survived to the end of the final round, she would most likely have retained her belt with the judges' blessing.
But in the post-fight press conference, it transpired that fate was enough to trump those technicalities, as the newly crowned champion Tate graciously said:
''I feel like it was meant to be and it turns out that it was. My corner are always honest with me. They told me 'it looks like she's won three of the four rounds and they told me to go in there all guns blazing and risk it to get the biscuit.''
Prior to UFC 196, conversation in the Bantamweight division was loaded with the possibility of a rematch between Holm and Rousey. But now the permutations have changed and Tate may be facing Rousey again for the first time since Rousey defeated her in a UFC fight in 2013.
But when that prospect was put to Tate, the 'Cupcake' had an interesting response.
"The right move feels like drinking a Budweiser and eating cupcakes. My drive as a champion is to fight the next best person."
Holm however, confessed that complacency was what consigned her to this outcome.
"For me, any time in loss I have to be honest with myself. Honestly, maybe I was getting too complacent instead of acting with that sense of urgency. She (Miesha) got in and I let it get too tight before I tried to shake her off."
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