Tatiana Suarez was on the brink of representing a nation before she received devastating news.
After feeling pain in her neck following a wrestling tournament in France, a visit to the doctors revealed Suarez had thyroid cancer.
Suarez had a malignancy in a number of lymph nodes, and with the cancer having spread to her lungs it left only one possible outcome.
At the age of just 21, Suarez had gone from dreaming of wrestling for Team USA at the London Olympics in 2012 to preparing for the surgery needed to remove the cancer.
“I thought I was definitely going to the Olympics to represent our country,” Suarez told Bleacher Report in 2019.
“I was only getting better at that time. I was hitting a peak; it was perfect timing for the Olympics. I was right there and now I couldn’t do it.”
After undergoing treatment, Suarez was isolated for a week as her recovery included radioactive iodine.
During this time, she turned to the one thing she knew how to do best – wrestling – setting up different workouts and wrestling drills to stay motivated.
Although her Olympic dreams were shattered, a new goal had been set in her mind: to become a UFC champion.
Now, 14 years later, Suarez, 34, is gearing up for something quite different, as he prepares to challenge for that UFC title.
It is a bout that is hard to describe as ‘the fight of her life’, considering what the Californian has already experienced in her career.
“I’m just here to win a world title,” Suarez said at UFC 312’s ceremonial weigh-ins on Thursday night.
“I know I’m the best in the world and I look forward to proving it on Sunday night.”
Suarez is undefeated in pro MMA, having emerged into UFC after winning the 23rd season of The Ultimate Fighter in 2016.
She has finished four of her seven opponents by way of submission, and her 65.8 per cent takedown attempt rate is the best in UFC strawweight history.
Suarez endured a four year hiatus from MMA between June 2019 and February 2023 due to injuries.
But when she returned to action in August 2023, it only took Suarez two rounds to score an emphatic submission victory over Montana De La Rosa before she defeated former champion Jessica Andrade six months later to set up this title fight.
Her opponent, Zhang Weili, is a two-time strawweight champion, having lost just two — both to Rose Namajunas — of her 11 bouts in the UFC.
Tatiana Suarez UFC career
Undefeated
Suarez is an accomplished wrestler having competed in the sport since the age of three, largely due to her family’s influence.
Her mother, Lisa, loved the sport and her father introduced wrestling to her older brothers, who would go on to help a young Suarez try her hand in the combat sport.
“When I was really young, I remember I’d always wrestle against the boys, and I’d always win,” Suarez said.
“I remember how competitive I was and how much I wanted to win. I would practice really hard. Even at a young age, it was that important to me to win.”
Suarez was widely recognised from a very young age to have the potential to become one of the very best in pro MMA.
In fact, one of her coaches, Betiss Mansouri, once compared her to Ronda Rousey, who spearheaded women’s MMA into a new light following her UFC bantamweight title win in 2013.
Mansouri, who has been coaching since 1990 said he ‘knew’ Suarez would ‘become a star’ ever since he first watched her roll on the mat.
Suarez is an old teammate of former UFC champion Sean Strickland, who will fight after her in the main event of UFC 312.
Strickland is looking to exact revenge in a rematch for the UFC middleweight title with Dricus Du Plessis, who he dropped the belt to in January last year.
The American trained with Suarez at Millennia MMA, a gym in Southern California, and recalled her once going very hard on a sparring opponent.
“I love Tatiana, dude,” he said at UFC 312 media day.
“…She has this m*****f****er in full mount, just dropping hell on this guy,” he added. “Her coach at the time, a guy named Betiss [Mansouri], real lazy f***er.
“I mean she’s dropping heat, and Betiss is like: ‘Woah, Tatiana. Chill out.’ Dropping the heat, she looks at him, ‘F*** you Betiss!’ And just keeps f***ing blasting this guy’s face.
“So, it’s like dude, Tatiana’s a scary b****, dude. Straight scary. I mean, she was a f***ing man, I’d have to shoot her.”
UFC 313 is expected to be a spectacle with two title bouts in the co-main and headline act.