‘I can dominate anyone’: Suarez’s shot to prove that she is a master of UFC 312

When Tatiana Suarez challenges Zhang Weili to UFC Strawweight Championship on Saturday, one thing she’s not missing is confidence. For if Suarez did not Indeed Believe that she was the best fighter on the planet, there is simply no way she could have endured what it has taken for her to get hit.

At UFC 312 inside Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Suarez (10-0) will finally realize an opportunity she has worked all her life for. The undefeated 34-year-old title challenger has been one of the most dominant forces in women’s MMA and wrestling for the past two decades, but she has never competed for a UFC championship or an Olympic medal-other for any fault.

She traces a performance for Team USA at the summer matches of 2012, when her wrestling career was cut off by a neck injury that revealed that Suarez had thyroid cancer. With the treatment, Suarez overcame the diagnosis. Then she was in line for a UFC title skin in 2019, before the injury again robbed her of the opportunity. Through her athletic career, she has defeated three UFC masters and an Olympic gold medal. Her resume is undeniably that of a master, just without the actual championships.

“I would say that I am obviously an impatient person,” Suarez told ESPN. “But because of the things I’ve had to go through, I’ve had to learn to be patient. So I assume the universe knew what I needed.”

If patience has been the lesson, the universe has been a merciless instructor for Suarez.

There are some good examples in UFC right now, of masters who took a long path to their first titled shot. It took airline weight Alexandre Pantoja 12 games over six years to earn its opportunity. Welterweight Belal Muhammad needed eight years and a nine-match winning row to get his. And Bantamweight Master Merab Dvalishvili has been obvious about the difficult path he took to the belt, a road that included three consecutive matches against former masters.

The difference in Suarez’s history, which has unfolded in the UFC for almost eight years now, is that most of her journey has taken place in a physical rehabilitation facility instead of Octagon. Due to severe neck and knee injuries, she has only managed to fight three times since 2019. At one point she went almost four years without a single look – and that absence came at the exact time she would have fought for the title.

“The hardest part has been told that she is the best in the world and having to sit there and watch matches when we knew she could have been the master,” Suarez’s fiancé and Bellator Mma Bantamweight Champion told ESPN. “She could have been the master of 2019. I remember the title match between Rose Namajunas and Weili when Rose won by knockout (in 2021). It was just after she hurt her knee.

“We were shocked by knockout because we’re just super fans of this sport as your shot.

The nearest Suarez has been on a UFC title so far was in 2019 when she defeated Nina Nunes at UFC 238 in Chicago. In his post -fighting interview with Joe Rogan, Suarez urged a titled shot in his next match and even mentioned the opportunity as a “long time comes.” She had already beaten a former champion of Carla Esparza at the time. The reference to “Long time came” was a nod to her who missed the Olympics and felt as if opponents appeared in the UFC.

Before this match, however, Suarez had wounded her throat as he trains, worsening the damage in the first round against Nunes. She fought for two rounds that night with numbness in her face and left arm. In the end, it took two years to rehabilitate her throat to the point she could fight again. During this time, she would go through more than three hours stretch of the throat, Every day. And at the end of the rehabilitation process, her already overdue was the opportunity to fight for a championship away.

“My neck was so bad, I couldn’t even roll (jiu-jitsu) with kids,” Suarez said. “I tried to swim, and it was like, ‘s —, swimming hurts my throat, this is serious.’ So I rehabilitated for two years.

Suarez’s mother, Lisa Padilla, remembers everything during the day of July 2021 when her daughter injured her knees. For her, after a day so bad, it’s like every detail clings to you.

She remembers that Suarez finally recovered from the neck damage and even booked a match against Roxanne Modafferi for that September. Suarez was in California, already in preparation for her return to Octagon in the fall. The day the injury occurred during exercise, Padilla had already plans to meet Suarez at the gym. The next day they had to take her little sister to Disneyland and the cinema at night.

There was a festive sense of Suarez’s life at the time. The neck injury was a serious obstacle to clearing. Padilla had even secretly wanted her to retire. She listened to doctors describing what could happen if the injury deteriorated and thought it was time for her daughter to focus on something else. However, she never said anything because she knew there was no chance that Suarez would go away.

It had taken two long, difficult years to get back from the neck damage that got a little bit before Nunes fought, but Suarez had done it – and of course Padilla felt such a relief that her daughter’s dream had not been stolen by an injury again. And then came the knee injury.

“It was the day I worried the most for her,” Padilla told ESPN. “I think she knew it was bad. People were trying to tell her it wasn’t, but I could see terror on her face.”

Suarez underwent operation for a full ACL, MCL and LCL Reconstruction and meniscus repair. Followed by two years of rehabilitation. She did not return to the competition until February 2023. She had earned a UFC titellot in June 2019, and eventually did not fight again until a non -nontitle 44 months later, in another weight class, air weight, so she did not have to cut so much weight after so much free.

During the time Suarez was gone, there were six straw weight title matches in the UFC. Had she been healthy, Suarez thinks she would have won any of them. Saturday she gets a chance to prove it.

Zhang from Hebei, China, is not only UFC’s master of 115 pounds, she is ranked as ESPN’s No. 1 Pound-for-Pund Fighter in Women’s MMA. For the first time in his UFC career, Suarez is a betting sub -dog.

Padilla says she’s always nervous when her daughter fights. It is a stressful experience for a mother. But on this one she is just eager for it to start. There will be a feeling of relief when the fight is underway because it will be the opportunity they have all been waiting for so long. She believes that getting this chance at a World Cup will give her daughter peace. It will give “a rest for her soul.”

The result of the match itself, it has never been in doubt. For her loved ones, Suarez has always been a master, all she ever needs was the opportunity to make it official.

“I think I can dominate anyone in the world because I’m merciless,” Suarez said.

Relentless and thanks to the universe, patient.