Lauren Murphy reacts to her stunning UFC victory against Miesha Tate

After defeating former titleholder Miesha Tate on Saturday, Lauren Murphy is now feeling like a champion-level competitor.

When Lauren Murphy faced Miesha Tate at UFC Long Island last Saturday, she intended to “be the spoiler.” And she succeeded in achieving her goals.

In the main event of UFC Long Island, Murphy defeated Tate by majority decision to avenge her title defeat to Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 266 in September 2021. Tate, who made her debut at 125 pounds, was outstruck and outwrestled by Murphy. In 2016, Tate previously held the UFC bantamweight title.

Murphy knew that Tate was eager for her own opportunity to face Shevchenko. Tate was expected to defeat Murphy and achieve that objective, which was a scenario that Murphy didn’t give any thought to.

She was aggressive throughout the whole fight, pummeling her opponent with punches and elbows and blocking takedown attempts over the course of three rounds. The judges gave Murphy scores of 30-27, 30-27, and 29-28 because they thought the battle was in her advantage.

Murphy has now won six of her last seven fights, with her lone defeat coming at the hands of Shevchenko. The champion dominated their championship battle before defeating Murphy with blows in the fourth round, and despite the fact that Murphy had just told reporters that she was suffering from a sickness prior to the fight, she dubbed it “the best f****** thing I’ve ever done in my life.” The 12-year veteran has encountered this circumstance several times.

A new perspective is one of the main reasons Murphy was able to recover from her setback and maybe return to the hunt for another title battle.

“I learned so much,” Murphy said.This is up there. This is a great day. Those are some great moments. I’m very happy right now and I think part of it, too, is that I’m not — like, there’s been big victories that I’ve had where I’m almost in disbelief. Like, ‘I can’t believe I won that. That’s f****** amazing.’ Right now I feel like, ‘Yeah, I won that because I’m a badass. I’m a bad motherf*****.’ I have the ability to win fights like that and I feel like I’m right where I belong.”