How Tatiana Suarez overcame setback after setback to earn UFC 312 title shot

Tatiana Suarez could have quit hundreds of times. Others unquestionably would have. The frustration with constantly facing detours and additional obstacles. Injury after injury. Setback after setback. It could’ve ultimately become too much.

But the 34-year-old from Covina, Calif., who faces off with Weili Zhang for the strawweight championship in the co-main event of this weekend’s UFC 312 pay-per-view from Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia isn’t one to just give up and walk away.

“My mom’s like, ‘She’s too stubborn to give up!’” Suarez said with a laugh, posted up in her hotel room just a couple days out from striding into the Octagon to challenge for UFC gold.

Though she doesn’t use the same verbiage, the past Ultimate Fighter winner does admit that when she’s committed to something, there is no getting her to back off.

Anyone that has followed her story to this point already knows that to be true, and those just being introduced to the undefeated challenger this weekend are going to be amazed to learn the hurdles she’s cleared in order to stand in the cage and compete for the title this weekend.

DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

Suarez was a standout wrestler all through high school and college. She was on track to compete at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London when a neck injury knocked her off course. During the imaging to determine what was wrong with her neck, doctors discovered a cancerous growth on her thyroid, which ultimately led to surgery, radiation therapy, and the end of her wrestling career.

A fierce competitor, Suarez eventually shifted her focus to mixed martial arts, earning a trio of stoppage wins on the California regional circuit before getting the call to compete on Season 23 of The Ultimate Fighter. She cruised through the strawweight tournament, submitting JJ Aldrich in the quarterfinals and Kate Jackson in the semis before doing the same to Amanda Cooper less than four minutes into their finals matchup. This was in 2016.

Everyone agreed the emerging standout had championship upside, and after dominant stoppage wins over future flyweight queen Alexa Grasso and inaugural strawweight champ Carla Esparza in 2018, it felt like only a matter of time before Suarez would be fighting for the title.

Instead, she went nearly a year before making her return to the Octagon, as contenders were reticent to risk their place in the rankings against the undefeated rising star. When she finally squared off with Nina Nunes at UFC 238, Suarez suffered a neck injury during her unanimous decision win that forced her to the sidelines for two years.

As she readied to make her return in the fall of 2021 against Roxanne Modafferi, she blew out her knee.

That was the one time she remembers questioning whether she should continue chasing her UFC title aspirations or finally throw in the towel and move on to something else. The parallels between her Olympic wrestling dreams being dashed and her hopes of reaching the top of the strawweight division too clear to simply brush aside.

“I felt that when I actually hurt my knee, because I knew it was so severe, just from the way it looked,” Suarez said when asked if there was ever a point where she thought about walking away. “After that, I started to think, ‘What can I do? I already spent two years rehabbing my neck and now this.’

“For a second I was just like, ‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t know how I would come back from the injury because I could tell how bad it was, and I didn’t even know yet. I hadn’t had an MRI, hadn’t had surgery, but I knew it was super, super bad. I thought to myself, ‘Will I be the same person? Will I be the same athlete?’

“That came into my head, but that was very brief, and I was like, ‘You know what? That’s not gonna stop me, because I love it and I’m the best in the world. I’m not gonna be sitting on the couch one day saying, ‘I could have done that’ because I gave up too soon.’”

She smiled, reflecting on the quick decision to push through another daunting rehab and continue chasing her goals on the eve of finally fighting for the UFC title.

“Yeah, I might not have known I would be the same athlete when I came back — I didn’t know what was to come — but I trusted in the universe and a higher power than me, trusted that I would make it happen for myself. All I had to do was wake up every day and choose that; make that same decision every single day.

“Once I made the decision, that was it; there was none of that!” she added, when asked if she ever second-guessed herself along the way back. “I made the decision, and when Tatiana sets her mind to something, she will do it and she will sacrifice anything to do it. That’s just who I am. That’s the person my mom made me into.”

Part of it was certainly upbringing and her own stubbornness, but it’s also because at the end of the day, competing is the thing that drives Suarez above all else.

“For me, it’s just a love for it,” she said, trying to explain what has kept her continuing to push forward throughout a lifetime of injuries, setbacks, and extended timelines. “With wrestling, I loved it so much, and with this sport, I love it so much.

“I love training every single day. It’s what I love to do, who I am, and my biggest passion. People ask me what my hobbies are and I say, ‘MMA.’ I wake up every day super excited to learn and get better; I just love it.”

MAKING THE WALK

When Suarez makes the walk this weekend, it will be validation of her persistence, as well as justification of the advance praised and lofty expectations that have clung to her throughout her start-and-stop career.

Finally, after yet another extended absence, and just a pair of appearances in the post-pandemic UFC, the blue-chip prospect with the unblemished record is set to challenge for championship gold.

“I feel like I just wanna compete,” said Suarez, focused more on getting to make to step into the ultimate proving ground once more than everything else that comes with this weekend’s penultimate contest. “I don’t really think about the fact that it’s been a ‘long time coming’ kind of thing; it’s just like we’re here, now is my time, this is my time.

“Even though I’ve felt like I’ve been the best in the world for years now, now is my time and I just gotta do what I gotta do on Sunday to become world champion.”

The words flow out of her mouth effortlessly, without a hint of doubt or hesitation. It’s not that she’s speaking them into existence, putting her intentions out there in hopes the fight gods see fit to reward her with a victory as much as she’s telling a friend what she has planned this weekend.

Oh, I just need to handle this little matter of becoming a world champion, but then the rest of my weekend is clear.

Of course, she knows the challenge before her is massive.

“It’s super exciting,” Suarez said, her face lighting up as she discusses Zhang, the two-time champion standing between her and UFC gold. “I have the best opponent that I’ve ever faced so far waiting, and I’m super excited because I know how great of a martial artist she is.”

The 35-year-old titleholder has already held the belt longer and successfully defended it more times during her second term as champion than she did the first time around, when she claimed the title from Jessica Andrade and defended it once, in an instant classic opposite Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248, before losing the belt and her subsequent rematch with Rose Namajunas.

After mauling Esparza to become the third straight two-time champion in the division’s history, Zhang has turned back the challenges of Amanda Lemos and Yan Xiaonan, the former going much more smoothly than the latter, though ultimately, both ended with little question that the champion had done enough to retain.

“She’s very respectful and respectable too,” continued Suarez, heaping praise on the humble and driven Zhang. “She works really hard and I respect that, because that’s everything I strive to be as well. She has a good character. She doesn’t use other things to market herself. She just uses her hard work, and I do the same thing, which is why I respect her. I look forward to going and beating a really great opponent.”

Just as there is always a little something extra special about handing an opponent the first loss of their career, as Zhang can possibly do to Suarez this weekend, the UFC 312 title challenger admits there is something special about her championship opportunity coming against the future Hall of Fame inductee and the No. 2 pound-for-pound female in the sport.

“Yeah, of course,” she said emphatically. “You want the best person out there. You wanna beat the best person, and I’ll go do that. I’ll do it in a dominant fashion.”

Her eyes lit up and her energy levels rose as shared her vision of victory this weekend.

“I’m gonna go and implement my game plan. I’m gonna be aggressive, relentless. I’m not gonna stop coming. I’m gonna get my hand raised.”

NO HESITATION

Because of the myriad layoffs she’s been forced to endure, Suarez has faced questions about rust and hesitation on multiple occasions, and each time she turned them aside with her performances in the cage.

She went 1,359 days between her fight with Nunes and her return bout against De La Rosa, and dominated the fight with her fellow TUF alum like no real time had passed. Less than six months later, she returned to strawweight and strangled Andrade, putting away the former champion in the second round to affirm that despite the time away she was still one of the biggest threats in the 115-pound ranks.

But every year that passes and every subsequent injury brings those same questions back to the fore.

When she crosses the threshold into the Octagon this weekend, it will have been 554 days since her win over Andrade, and while no one will deign to doubt her drive or her skills, those questions about whether she can continue thriving after another hiatus, another injury remain.

“That’s easy because I’m a competitor. I’ve done it my whole life, so that’s the easiest thing for me to do,” Suarez said. “Not only that, but if you put someone in a steel cage and they’re trying to kick you and punch you, the most primal part of you comes out, and I think to myself, ‘It’s not gonna be me!’

“I’m not out there thinking about my knee or my neck. I’m thinking about beating your ass!”

An excited, joyous laugh filled the call, making it clear that all those worries are property of everyone else, while the person that has actually gone through them is far more worried about the world-class talent standing across from her, eager to be the first to hand her a loss.

Naturally, Suarez sees things playing out a different way.

“For me, it’s just going out there, being super-relentless, gritty, tough,” she began, her tone shifting, as if talking about the fight itself triggers a different kind of focus inside of her. “I’m a very, very good submission artist, and I plan on going and getting the submission.

“Any type of finish, but I really wanna get a submission because I really like to submit people.”

It’s hard not to think about the potential Hollywood ending that could play out this weekend: the highly regarded prospect finally claiming gold more than eight years and numerous setbacks later, reaching the top of the division with an undefeated record, winning the belt from a legitimate all-time great.

While there has already been a documentary made about Suarez’s struggles and persistence, a win at UFC 312 could prompt a round of fantasy casting for who could play the new champion in the future biopic.

Of course, Suarez has to finish her story first, but when she does…

“It’s gonna feel great. I can’t wait,” she said, beaming just thinking about the moment. “I just gotta go out there, do my job, and the rest will come.

“They will say, ‘And New!’ and they’ll give me that belt.”

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