Skip to main content

Dana White: Tatiana Suarez resolidified herself as 'one of the best in the world' at UFC Fight Night 220

LAS VEGAS – UFC president Dana White couldn’t have been much more impressed with the “incredibly talented” Tatiana Suarez in her return to the octagon at UFC Fight Night 220.

After nearly four years away from competition due to injuries and other setbacks, undefeated wrestling standout Suarez (9-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) finally made her comeback on Saturday and defeated Montana De La Rosa (12-8-1 MMA, 5-4-1 UFC) by second-round submission at the UFC Apex. It was a largely dominant performance, and showed she hasn’t lost much of an edge in terms of skill since her previous fight in June 2019.

White said it’s a “big deal” for Suarez to perform in the manner she did, especially against a durable foe like De La Rosa, who had never previously been finished in her UFC career.

“She looked incredible, especially with the time off,” White told reporters, including MMA Junkie, at the UFC Fight Night 220 post-fight news conference. “Everybody knows how I feel about that much time off. Plus the things that she battled personally, physically. And De La Rosa is badass. That’s a legit comeback fight.”

If she can keep healthy and active, Suarez seems destined for a championship path. Her two wins prior to the layoff came over Nina Nunes and former two-time titleholder Carla Esparza, the latter of which was very one-sided. Suarez returned at women’s flyweight to avoid a serious weight cut in her first fight back, but intends to move back down to strawweight and chase gold.

White isn’t sure exactly how he’ll book Suarez next, but hinted that she’s got at least one more fight ahead before any title shot consideration.

“We’ll see where she ends up in the rankings and get a couple more fights under he belt and see what happens,” White said. “There’s no doubt she’s one of the best in the world. There was a lot of talk on the internet and a lot of hype about her coming back tonight. A lot of people were excited to see her. See how she was going to handle adversity again, and she came out looking awesome.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 220.



from MMA Junkie https://ift.tt/p3VfhWo
via IFTTT
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Burmese fighter: Joshua Van details pioneering journey to plant Myanmar's flag on UFC turf

Joshua Van remembers asking his mother why they had to live in Houston. Why couldn’t they just go back home where things were familiar? He was 12 years old at the time, and Van wanted to go back to where he lived the first decade of his life, in Myanmar. Life wasn’t easy for an undersized pre-teen who spoke little English and was picked on during school for both of those attributes. Looking back, the math adds up that he’d become the first Burmese fighter to compete in the UFC. “I was a small kid,” Van recently told MMA Junkie. “From where I come from, you get picked on. It’s kind of like I fight everyday, and I got to the point where I enjoyed fighting. I watched clips on street fights and how to win street fights. I tried it in my next fight and things like that. That’s what got me into my career.” Van grew up one of five siblings in Myanmar, a country ridden with military and political conflict . When things increasingly worsened, Van’s parents decided to move to Malaysia. Van...
Read more

Video: Oli Thompson lands devastating first-round knockout punch on Aleksei Oleinik in Russia

Aleksei Oleinik returned to action for the first time since his UFC exit, but things did not go in his favor. In the main event of REN TV Fight Club at Dynamo Volleyball Arena in Moscow, Russia, Oleinik (60-17-1 MMA) faced fellow UFC veteran Oli Thompson in a heavyweight bout. The result was a violent finish that left Oleinik staring up at the lights. Thompson (21-16 MMA) unleashed a crushing right hand that sent Oleinik crashing to the canvas with 35 seconds remaining in the opening round. Check out video of the finish below (via Twitter ): Oli Thompson destroys Alexey Oleynik with a massive right hand in the first round pic.twitter.com/AdWy25dQxR — caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) May 26, 2023 Thompson, 43, returned to the win column for the first time since 2020, snapping a four-fight losing skid. His last victory was also a first-round stoppage; a 23-second knockout of Szymon Bajor at Fight Exclusive Night 28 on June 13, 2020. Oleinik, 45, competed in his final UFC bout in Octo...
Read more

UFC's Ilia Topuria no longer interested in Paddy Pimblett: 'As a fighter we all know he's not worth anything'

MIAMI – Ilia Topuria has lost interest in a potential fight against Paddy Pimblett . After several shots at each other in interviews and on social media, a scuffle in a hotel lobby , and a post-fight callout in the octagon, Topuria said he is done trying to get a fight against Pimblett. Now highly ranked and with his sights on the UFC featherweight title, Topuria believes he’s past Pimblett and fighting him would be taking a step back. “Paddy, you know what happens with Paddy?” Topuria said in Spanish at a media day this past Saturday . “He’s a person that media attention wise, he’s big. But as a fighter we all know he’s not worth anything. He’s not even ranked. He hasn’t done anything. “So giving merit to a person that’s only where he is because he knows how to sell himself well, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. We’re athletes. In the UFC, the difference between them and other organizations is that here what’s valued is the sport and Paddy, sporting wise, hasn’t achiev...
Read more