“Carla Esparza became world champion while I was gone, and everybody made sure to be like, ‘Hey, you beat her and she’s a world champion now!’” Suarez laughs at the memory. “I’m like ‘Yeah, I didn’t know that guys.’”
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To be clear, Suarez had only love for her former opponent.
“People were like, ‘How do you feel about that?’ She put in the work and I’m happy for her. Same thing with Alexa Grasso. She became world champion at a different weight class, which is awesome, as well.”
What wasn’t awesome was nursing an injury that kept one of the sport’s most promising contenders from taking her own shot at UFC glory. But that chapter finally closed last February when Suarez returned to the Octagon and submitted Montana De La Rosa with a Performance of the Night-worthy guillotine. It didn’t look like she had been gone three weeks, let alone three years.
Fast forward to this week in Nashville, and the California native finds herself right back where she started: in the middle of the elite strawweight mix gunning for current champion Zhang Weili. Saturday, she’ll put her undefeated record on the line versus her third championship-caliber opponent, Jessica Andrade, in the co-main of UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Font. UFC.com sat down with her to talk about that fight, her recovery, and where she sees herself in the new strawweight landscape.