Don’t expect UFC fighter and Dancing with the Stars finalist Paige VanZant to add more fuel to the fire regarding a recent incident with Ronda Rousey. Earlier in May, Rousey’s nemesis and current women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate went on the Joe Rogan Experience and relayed a story Paige told her about Ronda freaking out on her.
“Ronda came up [to Paige] and was like, ‘F*ck you, you fair weather b*tch, how dare you cross me.’” Tate said. “She’s like, ‘Cross you, what are you talking about?’ And [Ronda] was like, ‘You congratulated Holly Holm for beating me, so f*ck you.’ … And Paige came and told me, and I was like, ‘Honey, welcome to my world.’”
Ronda Rousey has never hid her hatred of Miesha Tate from the world’s view — she spent an entire season of The Ultimate Fighter swearing at Tate and throwing middle fingers her way. But this was the first we’d heard of Ronda getting in the faces of non-opponents. And while VanZant did confirm the incident happened, she played it down in a new interview with Hollywood Today.
“There was a little aggression, I won’t go into details,” Paige said. “I feel like I was very hurt at first. Very hurt and frustrated about the whole situation. But afterwards I really had to take a step back, and as fighters we are very emotional, we wear our emotions on our sleeves.”
“Ronda being the champ for so long and then having as significant of a loss as she had, she has to be very emotional about it. And I really feel for her and I have nothing but love for her and hopefully I can make it right with her.”
Paige sounds like she just wants to put the whole situation behind her, and it makes sense as she has little to gain from picking a fight with someone a weight class above her. She’s also got her own business to take care of: she’ll be competing on the Dancing with the Stars two-night season finale that kicks off this Monday May 3 at 8 p.m.
Winning that competition would be a huge feather in the cap of the rising star, and hopefully give her some much needed confidence when she returns to the cage. In her last fight before leaving for the reality competition, she was beaten bloody and submitted by Rose Namajunas, who is ranked third in their division. Paige is currently sitting in the number eight spot, and I’m sure she’d like to rise in the rankings once she returns to fighting.