Issue 178

May 2019

Having been diagnosed with cancer in her teens, Tatianna Suarez knows all about overcoming adversity. "I'm the most competitive person you will ever meet", she says

Tatiana Suarez

• UFC Strawweight
• Age: 28
• Record: 9-0-0
• Team: Millennia MMA
• From: Covina, California, United States

There are plenty of incredible stories when it comes to fighters overcoming great adversity to fight in the UFC, but Tatiana Suarez’s journey is perhaps up there with the greatest of them all.

The 28-year-old began her MMA career back in 2014 when she competed twice as an amateur before making her professional debut in her home state, California on July 19. Her unanimous decision win over Tyra Parker that evening marked the start of an impressive rise that has seen her build a 9-0 undefeated record and win series 23 of The Ultimate Fighter in 2016, but whilst her MMA record remains unblemished, life hasn’t always been plain sailing for the now number three-ranked UFC strawweight.

“I had thyroid cancer and I only found out because of a neck injury I sustained whilst wrestling,” Suarez recalls with a rare candour, remembering a traumatic time in her late teens. “It’s just insane to me because I never would’ve gone to get my neck checked out if it wasn’t for my coach. I’m very stubborn when it comes to injuries I always think they will get better on their own. He begged me to go get it checked out so I did. It turned out that it wasn’t very good news about the neck, but the scan also showed that I had a node on my thyroid so I had to go get that checked as well.

“I was only 19 at the time so I thought it wasn’t going to be anything serious,” she continues. “I went and got it checked out and it turned out to be thyroid cancer. It was definitely a huge surprise and a big moment in my life. I had to get it removed so I had radiation and stuff like that. They had to take lymph nodes out as well and it spread to my lungs as well so I had to have more radiation. People always ask me about it, but it’s really just a weird, fuzzy part of my life.”

Having dedicated herself to wrestling at such a young age, Suarez was devastated to learn her ambition to compete at the London 2012 Olympics was no longer attainable. As a two-time bronze medalist at the 2008 and 2010 Wrestling World Championships, Suarez had dedicated much of her childhood and teenage life to the sport and to learn she could no longer compete at the highest level left her feeling lost and directionless.

“I think a lot of how I felt was to do with just not being able to wrestle anymore,” Suarez reflects. “That alone was very difficult for me. It was just such a huge part of who I was. I had wrestled since I was three-years-old. I had given up so much to pursue my dreams in that area. When it all got taken away from me I felt like I didn’t know who I was without wrestling.

“Nothing just made sense to me,” she continues. “It sounds dumb, but I really secluded myself from everything and I didn’t have friends or anything like that. Everything was just kind of happening at once. I was engaged and in a six-year relationship, but that ended and I had to deal with that during this time.”

Thankfully, Suarez showed her true fighting spirit during her battle with cancer and in 2014 she received the all-clear. The Californian then attempted to return to living a normal life, but with her competitive spirit still burning inside of her, it wasn’t long before she found a new passion.

“I was cleared just before my twenty-first birthday,” Suarez remembers with a smile. “It was almost two years that I had to deal with cancer. After that, I just began working a real job but I quickly came to terms with the fact that it wasn’t the life for me. This wasn’t what my mom, my grandma and I had sacrificed so much for. I knew there was something different I should be doing.

“It was around that time someone asked me if I would like to go to this MMA gym,” she continues. “I agreed to it and I immediately fell in love with it. I knew that was where I belonged. My jiu-jitsu coach said in my first week that I should go compete at the world championships. I was a white belt and literally just started, I didn't even know a submission yet but he said that didn’t matter and that I ‘just had to smash.’ I ended up going and I won the tournament. I seriously didn’t know one submission but I would just take them down and just pass [guard] to get points. If I had just been doing it for a few months then I would’ve probably submitted some of them.”

It was at the Millennia MMA Gym in Rancho Cucamonga, California that Suarez’s passion for MMA grew. Working closely with coach Betiss Mansouri, Suarez began to channel all of her energy into her MMA career and her coaching team matched her efforts.

“As soon as I started MMA I loved it and I had so much fun,” Suarez recalls. “I loved jiu-jitsu and for a while, I just wanted to do that, but then people were telling me I should start striking because if I could learn that I could become a fighter. I then started doing that and never looked back.”

“Even when I first started, my coach and I would work for hours and hours drilling footwork, jabs, everything,” Suarez continues. “From day one he was always willing to put in the work and so was I. It was a perfect match and he just put all his energy into me and we’ve certainly reaped the benefits. I think we’re at the level we’re at because we’ve worked so hard and I know we’re going to achieve what we set out to do.”

Suarez’s wrestling has given her the perfect base from which to build her wider MMA skillset and she attributes a lot of her success so far to her first competitive love. Whilst she believes she still has plenty of room for growth, Suarez knows that her strong wrestling background will continue to be a key component of her future success.

“A lot of wrestlers get into MMA and they don’t translate too well, but plenty of people from wrestling backgrounds go on to do great things and there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that,” Suarez argues. “Even if they just did a bit in college or high school a lot of them do really well. If you look at the number of champions in MMA right now, a lot of them didn’t compete at like an Olympic standard of wrestling, but a lot of them did compete at some level.

“Look at Kamaru Usman,” she continues. “He was never Olympic level, but he wrestled at college, he wrestled when he was growing up and now he’s a champion. I think a lot of it is to do with the work ethic which it gives you.” Despite her previous challenges in life, one thing that has never wavered is Suarez’s competitive spirit. With a UFC strawweight title shot now in touching distance, Suarez knows that another big

victory against a big name will put her in the frame to be the next title challenger at 115-pounds. According to Suarez at least, it’s not even a question whether she will be the rightful next challenger if she racks up another win.

“I’m the most competitive person you will ever meet,” Suarez laughs. “I’m super competitive to the point where I’m over competitive. I’m exactly at the level I expected myself to be at and there was no way I was ever going to do this to be a low-level fighter. There was no way I was going to work my way to where I’m at now and not get to where I want.

“This next fight is the one that will get me that shot,” she continues. “At this point, it’s just common sense. I don’t think Joanna [Jedrzejczyk] can claim she deserves a shot. She just came off the back of losing a title fight at flyweight and she hasn’t fought. I think after this next fight I’m the one who deserves it the most.”

With champion Rose Namajunas defending her title against Jessica Andrade at UFC 237 in May, only Jedrzejczyk and Ansaroff remain above Suarez in the official UFC rankings. Suarez believes that only one of them will be ready in time to face her in the near future and that it makes the most sense that the winner goes on to challenge for the title later in the year.

“Nina [Ansaroff] is the one I’m probably most interested in right now,” Suarez argues. “She just beat Gadelha and I think it’s the one that makes the most sense at this point. She just fought and she’s ready. I think Joanna is just taking some time off right now and I don’t want to just wait for her. She seems to just be traveling all over the world and enjoying herself so it doesn’t look like she’s going to be ready in the next couple of months, but Nina can be.

“According to the rankings at least those are the fights that make the most amount of sense,” she continues. “I know Cynthia [Calvillo] called me out, but that fight doesn’t make a lot of sense for me at all. Good for her trying to get a fight up the rankings but that fight would never have gone in her favor anyway. For me right now I think it’s got to be Nina.”

With the strawweight title in her sights, Suarez isn’t afraid to share her wider ambitions. Amanda Nunes recently became the first woman to hold both the UFC bantamweight and featherweight titles and Suarez wants to achieve a similar feat in the lighter women’s weight classes.

“When my time comes to fight for the strawweight belt I’m going to be ready,” Suarez states emphatically. “I’m going to get the title, defend it, and then I’m going to go to flyweight and get that title too. I don’t just want to be a champ in one division; I want to be a double champ. If I was just a little bigger I would try to go to 135, but I’m not that big and I walk around at like 130.

“Even to go to flyweight I will have to put on a bit weight” she adds. “The girls that fight at flyweight walk around heavier than 130 but that wouldn’t be an issue for me. It really just depends how this all plays out. Right now I’m just focused on getting the next fight, making a big statement and then fighting for the strawweight title. That’s the goal right now.”