Miesha Tate doesn’t see her road to UFC flyweight gold being a long one.

Tate (19-8 MMA, 6-5 UFC), a former bantamweight champion, makes her debut at 125 pounds against Lauren Murphy (15-5 MMA, 7-5 UFC) on July 16 at UFC on ABC 3 and should she beat the former title challenger, “Cupcake” wants a title shot.

Following her seventh title defense against Taila Santos at UFC 275, flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko (23-3 MMA, 12-2 UFC) expressed interest in fighting Tate, who will look to jump at the opportunity if she gets past Murphy.

“Yes, if not me then who else?” Tate told MMA Junkie. “If I go out and beat Lauren the way that I intend to – I don’t want to jinx myself so I’m not going to say it, but just watch on the 16th, and granted I do what I feel like I’m gonna do, I’m gonna go out there and I’m gonna win, she’s going to be saying my name a lot more often because if not me, who else?

“Beating Lauren Murphy is a great feather in my cap and, yeah, I’m a former world champion, and I’m not here forever. Let’s get this show on the road. I want to fight the best. I want to fight Valentina. Lauren is a tough, gritty fighter, she’s ranked inside the top five, so it’ll be a great win for me. It’ll put me right in that spot, and Valentina’s done a beautiful job of clearing out everybody else, so the division is really wide open.”

Tate actually thought Santos beat Shevchenko after the Brazilian was able to hold the champion down and threaten with submission attempts on multiple occasions. Tate admits she was hoping to be the one to expose Shevchenko’s grappling.

“I had that confidence before,” Tate said. “It doesn’t really change anything for me except now the rest of the world can see what I was thinking the whole time, which is kind of annoying to be honest, because I really wanted to be the first one to do it, so I’m not thrilled, but yeah, it doesn’t change anything. I still feel exactly the same as I felt about Valentina. I knew that. I already knew it. I knew it watching (Julianna Peña) fight her. I know that Juli got caught in a submission. You can’t underestimate Valentina’s grappling game.

“She definitely has one. She’s got some slick submissions, and she’s no slouch on the ground, but I said it’s going to take somebody who can wrestle a little bit because we’ve already seen what happens when people try to strike, but I think people were quick to forget that Jennifer Maia held her down for a round. I was like, ‘Oh, noted.’ I remember thinking that back then and then Juli had some success taking her down. It’s not impossible, especially for my style. I have the style to do it.”