Tatiana Suarez hopes to hear from Ultimate Fighting Championship about a title shot soon.
Weili Zhang defended his strawweight title with a lopsided unanimous decision win over compatriot Yang Xiaonan at UFC 300 earlier this month. Suarez has not yet been contacted by the UFC, but he believes he is the next to challenge Chan. Suarez also said she expects to hear good news from the UFC soon, and that her manager Ali Abdelaziz will be meeting with promotion executives soon.
Suarez believes the only details to be worked out are when and where Chan will be ready to fight again. The UFC is rumored to be planning a return to Zhang’s home country of China in August, but Suarez noted that it is unlikely to be a pay-per-view card. The 33-year-old hopes to take on ‘Magnum’ on the UFC’s own card planned for Mexico’s Independence Day in September at The Sphere in Las Vegas.
“As a matter of fact, I hope we get some news here in the next few days and we’ll see how everything goes and what they think…I I think it was Ali’s idea.” [Abdelaziz] I’m going to sit down with them and see what’s going on, just talk about things and the future of things and we’ll see what happens,” Suarez told ESPN MMA. “I don’t know if I can say that…I hear it’s going to China in August, but that’s not on the cards for pay-per-view. So maybe it’ll be something like The Sphere in September? I don’t know. That would be great, especially since I’m Mexican, so it would be a good fight. And knowing Weyli, she would spit something out in Spanish and make it even better. Everybody loves her, everybody loves me, so it’s going to be a great fight on the card.”
However, Suarez is open to fighting in China as long as he wins the title. With Chan’s ground game evolving, Suarez expects a potential collision to appear on the canvas at some point, where he is confident of a submission victory.
“I think it’s going to be 100 percent abolished at some point. I don’t know if she wants to drag me down or if I want to drag her down,” said the 33-year-old. he said. “She’s proven to be good at takedowns as well as I am. And I think she might want to take me down. I don’t know if she’s going to catch a kick or something, but , then she can go ground. And anything is OK really in that regard…I think I’ll get the submission 100%, I think I’ll sub her.”
After an injury-plagued hiatus of nearly four years, Suarez returned last year and scored back-to-back submission wins over Montana de la Rosa and Jessica Andrade. The undefeated champion was then scheduled to face Amanda Lemos in a tile eliminator, but was forced to withdraw due to a knee injury.