Miesha Tate returns to the Octagon at UFC 205

With under two months until UFC 205, the UFC’s historic inaugural event in the Madison Square Garden, the card is beginning to take shape!

Friday afternoon, ESPN’s Brett Okamoto broke news that Miesha Tate would be returning to the Octagon at UFC 205 to fight Raquel Pennington in a pivotal women’s bantamweight showdown.

For Tate, the fight will mark the first time she steps in the Octagon following her UFC 200 loss to Amanda Nunes, which saw ‘Cupcake’ lose the women’s bantamweight title in the main event of the historic card. While some weren’t giving Nunes much of a chance going into the fight, Nunes dominated the fight from start to finish, stopping the WMMA veteran in the very first round.

Her opponent for UFC 205, Raquel Pennington, will be stepping into the Octagon on a 3-fight wins streak that has seen her defeat Jessica Andrade, Bethe Correia, and most recently Elizabeth Phillips. In addition, her 3-fight win streak has Pennington climb to #8 on the UFC’s official women’s bantamweight rankings.

The card has also picked up several other high profile fights throughout the course of the last several weeks, including a welterweight title fight between Tyron Woodley and Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson, and a women’s strawweight title fight between Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Karolina Kowalkiewicz.

The fight that has yet to be announced however is the main event scrap, which is expected to involve UFC lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. While initial reports were that Alvarez would fight Conor McGregor for the UFC lightweight championship, more recent reports have revealed that Alvarez will likely be fighting #1 ranked lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov in the main event of the highly anticipated card.