Miesha Tate vs. Ketlen Vieira - UFC Vegas 43 Preview

Miesha Tate will be fighting in the main event of UFC Vegas 43 this weekend as she takes on women’s bantamweight contender Ketlen Vieira. Both of these women are ranked in the top ten of the division and will be looking to get another win to make their way towards another title shot.

Miesha Tate

This will be Miesha Tate’s second fight back following her comeback earlier this year. Tate took about five years off from MMA in 2016. Finally making her return in July with a TKO victory over Marion Reneau. Prior to her layoff, Tate went 5-5 in the UFC. Her UFC losses include Ronda Rousey twice, Cat Zingano, Raquel Pennington, and Amanda Nunes. She has career wins over Liz Carmouche, Sara McMann, Jessica Eye, and Holly Holm, with 11 of her 19 wins coming by way of finish with seven of them being submission wins.

Miesha Tate is a former UFC women’s bantamweight champion, and has also won a fight of the night bonus twice and has also won two performance of the night bonuses. Prior to getting in the UFC, Tate won the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight title. Tate is a purple belt in BJJ and has always been known to be a great wrestler. She trains out of Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she has plenty of great wrestlers and strikers at her disposal to train with.

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Ketlen Vieira

Ketlen Vieira will be coming into this fight with a two-inch height and a three-inch reach advantage over Tate. Vieira is a black belt in BJJ and a black belt in Judo. In Vieira’s second professional fight, she won the Mr. Cage women’s bantamweight title and went 6-0 prior to getting in the UFC. Her opponents in that time had a combined record of 3-1, with three of those six opponents making their professional debut.

Ketlen Vieira is 5-2 in the UFC since making her debut in 2016. In that time she has wins over Ashlee Evans-Smith, Sara McMann, Cat Zingano, and Sijara Eubanks. Her only career losses include a KO loss to Irene Aldana and a decision loss in her last fight against Yana Kunitskaya. Vieira has finished six of her 11 wins, with four of those finishes being submissions. She has fought once a year since 2018, making this the first time she has fought twice a year since her back-to-back wins in 2017.

The Matchup

This fight will be classic wrestling versus BJJ matchup. Most grappling matchups are decided by who is the most technically sound fighter and who is the most physically strong fighter. Vieira seems to have an advantage in BJJ, but Tate is a more dominant wrestler. Vieira will come into this fight with a slight size advantage and she is also five years younger than Tate. Being the younger fighter, Vieira should come in with some sort of strength advantage. Sometimes where high-level grapplers fight each other they tend to strike with each other. If that happens, this fight could go either way. Vieira is a black belt in judo, so she is very good at getting the fight to the ground, but fans have also witnessed Tate outstrike great strikers in Liz Carmouche and Marion Reneau.