We have have been talking about Tatiana Suarez as a potential strawweight champion since she she entered the UFC after winning the Ultimate Fighter in 2016. When she won her first five fights the promotion in emphatic fashion, it seemed like a near certainty she would eventually achieve that feat.
But then, the decorated wrestling specialist hit a speed bump. A big one.
She spent roughly three and half years on shelf, battling a series of serious injuries, until she nearly disappeared from our collective memory.
She finally returned to the cage earlier this year, taking on Montana De La Rosa one division up at flyweight, and won the fight with a second-round choke. It was a very impressive win, particularly after so much time away from competition, but defeating an unranked flyweight didn't do much to get her quest for the strawweight belt back on track.
Suarez's UFC on ESPN 50 fight with Jessica Andrade, which co-headlined the card in Nashville, was much more impactful in that regard.
Suarez got to work with her wrestling early in the first round of her fight with the former strawweight champ, and clearly banked a 10-9 round by the time it was over. In the end, however, scoring the fight would not be necessary, as Suarez tapped her experienced foe out with guillotine choke in round two.
"Her hands weren't even completely locked, that's how deep that choke was," commentator Dominick Cruz said after the finish.
It was easily the biggest win of Suarez's undefeated MMA career so far. In fact, if there wasn't already a queue of contenders waiting for a shot at the reigning strawweight champ Zhang Weili, the win over Andrade might even be enough to earn Suarez a title opportunity.
While Suarez will most likely need to win one more fight while Zhang deals with other contenders like Amanda Lemos, who she'll fight at UFC 292 later this month, a strawweight title win is once again looking like the wrestler's destiny.
