Tatiana Suarez is eyeing a future showdown with arguably the greatest strawweight in UFC history.
Suarez (8-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) has ran through all competition in her professional MMA career, scoring notable wins over current UFC strawweight champion Carla Esparza, Nina Nunes, and rising contender Alexa Grasso.
Although she’s looking to come back at flyweight, Suarez definitely has plans of dropping back down to strawweight and hopes she gets to fight former 115-pound champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk (16-4 MMA, 10-4 UFC) at some point.
“Before she retires, I want to fight Joanna,” Suarez said on The Schmozone Podcast. “I feel like that would be a good fight just because she has pretty good takedown defense and stuff, and obviously she’s a former champion. I think it’ll be a good fight, it’ll be fun, and I think they had mentioned that after my Nina Ansaroff fight. They’re like, ‘Oh, you know what would be a good fight is her vs. Joanna.'”
Suarez hasn’t competed since defeating Nunes in June 2019 as she’s been sidelined due to various injuries, most recently undergoing knee surgery last summer.
With Suarez eyeing both flyweight and strawweight upon her return, she’d rather fight Jedrzejczyk first over UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, simply because she doesn’t see Jedrzejczyk hanging around the sport for too much longer.
“I think she’ll retire first, so I want to fight her first,” Suarez said. “Because you know how she was gone for a while and then she came back. I don’t know. I just feel like if someone beats her, she’ll probably be like, ‘Ah.’ So I feel like I gotta get in there before she decides, ‘Ah, I don’t want to fight no more.’
“Valentina, I saw an interview where she was like, ‘I’m gonna do this until I’m 50.’ So I was like, OK, she’ll be around for a while. I could win the 115-pound division and then go up as soon as because I know she’s not just gonna be like, ‘Ah, I’m tired of fighting.'”
Jedrzejczyk returns from an over two-year layoff to rematch Zhang Weili Saturday at UFC 275, which takes place at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN2 and ESPN+.
