UFC Fight Night: Maia vs Usman: The best and worst

#2 Best: Tatiana Suarez is awesome

Tatiana Suarez is a legitimate contender at Strawweight

When she won the TUF 23 tournament at Strawweight in early 2016, it looked like the UFC might have a genuine contender on their hands in the form of Tatiana Suarez. The former Olympic hopeful in wrestling simply whitewashed her opponents on the reality show, submitting all three en route to winning the coveted six-figure contract.

Since then, though, injuries have derailed her momentum and up until last night she’d only fought once – a unanimous decision win over Viviane Pereira in November. But last night she was matched with her toughest foe to date in top ten fighter Alexa Grasso in what looked like a close match on paper.

As it was, it wasn’t close at all. Suarez took the Mexican striker down with ease, worked her over from the top and then took her back and choked her out. The win took less than three minutes and was arguably the most impressive on the entire card.

Suarez is clearly a legitimate contender in the division – Grasso had only ever lost to contender Felice Herrig prior to this and that fight was quite close – and it’s probably time to push her into the title scene as champ Rose Namajunas is crying out for fresh challengers right now.

Based on how good she looked last night, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Suarez holding the gold at some point in the future.