Tatiana Suarez used a statement finish at UFC 327 to push herself back into the strawweight title conversation, submitting Loopy Godinez in Miami and immediately turning her attention to championship gold.
Suarez tapped Godinez with a rear-naked choke in the second round of their prelim strawweight bout at the Kaseya Center, becoming the first fighter to submit Godinez. With the victory, Suarez moved to 12-1 in MMA and 9-1 in the UFC, while Godinez dropped to 14-6 MMA and 9-6 UFC.
“… I think with a really good finish, that does put me in the talks,” Suarez said afterward, making it clear she sees the performance as a springboard back toward the top of the division.
Suarez previously came up short in a title shot against then-champion Zhang Weili in early 2025, the first loss of her career. Now, with Mackenzie Dern holding the strawweight belt after Zhang vacated to move up for a flyweight title shot against Valentina Shevchenko, Suarez is open to multiple paths back to UFC gold.
“I guess it just depends on Weili,” Suarez said. “I heard that she was going back down to 115, but I will gladly go fight Mackenzie for that belt. The UFC makes those decisions. I just go in there. They tell me a time, date and an opponent, and I just show up.”
“Obviously I want to get the belt, regardless of who it is,” she added, while also expressing her desire to face Zhang again and her belief that it “would be a different outcome.”
