Tatiana Suarez has no other choice but to wait for her body to heal before going back to the cage. According to the female fighter, her latest injury has been preventing her from using her most powerful skills, pushing her to resort to boxing instead.
Suarez was supposed to meet Amanda Lemos at UFC 298 but had to withdraw due to an injury. In a recent post, the No. 2 women’s strawweight fighter assured fans that she “won’t be out for long” but didn’t detail her case. Nonetheless, in her latest interview, Suzrez shed light on the injury she’s been dealing with.
“They told me not to tell people what it is, but it’s like kind of one of those things if you just ask anybody who trains with me, they’re like, ‘Yeah, Tatiana’s knee is hurt a little bit,'” Suarez said on the Two Straws Podcast. “It’s not a big injury, but it’s a very strange injury.”
Although the fighter does not consider the injury a huge one, Suarez admitted that it is preventing her from using the best skill she needs in her MMA fights: grappling. Nonetheless, the 33-year-old views this positively, taking it as a chance to improve the other aspects of her skills.
“Basically what happened was my knee just completely swelled, like got so swollen where I couldn’t bend it or do anything. All I could do was literally hit mits. If I go hard, it starts to hurt, so I have to tone it down. I couldn’t bend my knee completely, so I couldn’t do any grappling or any wrestling, or any sparring…
“The other day, I did do boxing… If you watch all of my fights, I’m more of a kicker. It forced me to actually box, and I was doing OK. I was like, ‘Oh hell yeah! I’m Muhammad Ali!'”
