Tatiana Suarez Vows To Handle Rose Namajunas Better Than Carla Esparza

A scary contender has emerged in the UFC’s women’s 115-pound division.

Tatiana Suarez made a statement when she dominated Carla Ezparza inside the Octagon, en-route to a third-round TKO win over the former inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion. Suarez handily controlled Esparza, an impressive wrestler in her own right, on the ground.

The ground-and-pound over the course of three rounds took its toll late on, and the referee was forced to call the action off. Some suggested on social media that the reason for Suarez’s dominance wasn’t necessarily her skill, but her size. She took to Twitter to address this:

“People are so funny. Constantly putting me down. Every time I win it’s because I’m way bigger than every1 in my division.

“It has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve wrestled since I was 3yrs old or the fact that I work my ass off every day to be successful at my craft.”

People are so funny. Constantly putting me down. Every time I win it’s because I’m way bigger than every1 in my division. It has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve wrestled since I was 3yrs old or the fact that I work my ass off every day to be successful at my craft.

— Tatiana Suarez (@tatianaufc) September 12, 2018

Speaking on the Top Turtle Podcast, Suarez talked about a possible match-up with UFC strawweight champion Rose Namajunas.

Given that Esparza defeated Rose Namajunas to become the first-ever 115-pound champion, Suarez thinks she can dominate Namajunas even better than she did against Esparza (quotes via MMA Mania):

“I think I’ll do the same thing I did to Esparza—I’ll do the same thing to Rose. It actually might be worse because Rose isn’t nearly as good of a wrestler as Esparza.

“She’s longer, but that’s about it. We saw what Esparza did to Rose,” Suarez said. “And I think I’m the best wrestler in the division.”

While Suarez admits that the UFC women’s strawweight division has some talented wrestlers, she doesn’t think any of them are on her level:

“I think [people in my division] know how to shoot, they’re powerful—like Claudia [Gadelha] and [Jessica] Andrade,” Suarez said. “There’s a difference between knowing how to shoot and actually knowing how to wrestle. I know how to wrestle,” she added.