Tag: Carla Esparza

Tatiana Suarez Vows To Handle Rose Namajunas Better Than Carla Esparza

Tatiana Suarez is looking to dominate the UFC women’s strawweight champion.

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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 *** off every day to be successful at my craft.”

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.

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Tatiana Suarez Says She’ll Dominate Rose Namajunas Worse Than Carla Esparza

Tatiana Suarez solidified herself as a legitimate threat to the 115-pound throne at UFC 228 this past weekend. Suarez completely dominated inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion Carla Esparza at UFC 228. With the big win, Suarez can expect to…

Tatiana Suarez solidified herself as a legitimate threat to the 115-pound throne at UFC 228 this past weekend. Suarez completely dominated inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion Carla Esparza at UFC 228. With the big win, Suarez can expect to receive a top-tier match-up next. Interestingly enough, Esparza defeated Namajunas to become the first-ever UFC 115-pound […]

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UFC 228 Prelims Ratings Tank With Lowest Numbers All Year

Ratings are in for the UFC 228 prelims and it’s not looking good. In fact, it couldn’t be much worse for last Saturday’s (Sat., September 8, 2018) pay-per-view card from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, at least for the preliminary card. The FX and Fight Pass-aired prelims reportedly brought in the lowest figures all […]

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Ratings are in for the UFC 228 prelims and it’s not looking good.

In fact, it couldn’t be much worse for last Saturday’s (Sat., September 8, 2018) pay-per-view card from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, at least for the preliminary card. The FX and Fight Pass-aired prelims reportedly brought in the lowest figures all year.

According to MMA Fighting’s Dave Meltzer, the prelims averaged 560,000 viewers, peaking with 683,000 viewers during the featured Tatiana Suarez vs. Carla Esparza fight, to earn the lowest numbers of the year.

Several factors contributed to the low numbers, with the fights being moved to FX instead of the customary FOX Sports 1 to make room for college football certainly playing a big role. The overall competition factor with college football overall also definitely failed to help things as well.

The numbers were the lowest for the prelims of a UFC pay-per-view card since September 2017’s UFC 215. That card saw the prelims delayed for an hour by the Walker Cup golf tournament. The event was a low-anticipated pay-per-view as well, with a scant 100,000 buys for the Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko-headlined card rating as one of the worst in modern history. Throughout 2018, UFC prelims have averaged 789,000 viewers on FOX Sports 1 and only 617,000 viewers on FX.

The prelims faced competition from three major football games airing concurrently, but overall, the main detractor to the UFC 228 prelims was simply the lack of interest in the card and more specifically, the lack of interest in its main event, which is always the main motivating factor in how a card rates on both TV and pay-per-view. This event saw welterweight champion Tyron Woodley defend his title against highly-promoted rising Brit Darren Till in the main event.

But while Till has been hyped through the roof since beating Donald Cerrone last year, a few indicators show that Till did not actually bring much attention to the card in an overarching sense.

There were around 500,000 Google searches for the event, with 200,000 of those being for Woodley itself. Meltzer clarified that while this was a low number, it wasn’t necessarily a disaster and on par with Google search expectations for the event.

The pre-fight show airing on FX brought 271,000 viewers while the post-fight show on FOX Sports 1 did a putrid 64,000 viewers, again showing a pure lack of interest in the product the UFC offered last weekend.

The UFC has seen far too much of this during this year, and while that’s bound to turn around with next month’s Conor McGregor vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov megafight, McGregor can’t fight every weekend. Clearly, the UFC is losing the interest of fans.

If they can turn that around is anyone’s guess.

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UFC 228 Video Highlights: Suarez Cements Status With Big TKO Over Esparza

In a highly-anticipated bout, undefeated UFC Women’s Strawweight contender Tatiana Suarez met the first-ever UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion Carla Esparza inside the Octagon in the FX preliminary main event leading into the UFC 228: Woodle…

In a highly-anticipated bout, undefeated UFC Women’s Strawweight contender Tatiana Suarez met the first-ever UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion Carla Esparza inside the Octagon in the FX preliminary main event leading into the UFC 228: Woodley vs. Till pay-per-view on Saturday night. As expected, the UFC Women’s Strawweight division has a brand new rising contender that […]

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Carla Esparza Refuses To Let “Female Khabib” Tatiana Suarez Take Her Spot

Carla Esparza is currently the No. 6-ranked strawweight in the UFC. The former 115-pound champion is seeking to reclaim the title she helped introduce to the promotion. She could take a huge step towards doing that tomorrow night (Sat. September 8, 2018) in Dallas, Texas. Esparza will share the Octagon with Tatiana Suarez at UFC 228. […]

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Carla Esparza is currently the No. 6-ranked strawweight in the UFC.

The former 115-pound champion is seeking to reclaim the title she helped introduce to the promotion. She could take a huge step towards doing that tomorrow night (Sat. September 8, 2018) in Dallas, Texas.

Esparza will share the Octagon with Tatiana Suarez at UFC 228. Suarez is a highly-touted prospect and former Ultimate Fighter winner. “The Cookie Monster” won’t allow, who she calls the “female Khabib [Nurmagomedov],” to take her spot (quotes via MMA Junkie):

“As for her being an up-and-comer, I mean she’s been dominating everyone,” Esparza said. “I know she’s hungry. She’s young, she’s looking to drive up to the top. She’s been moving pretty fast, so it’s my job to stop that.

“I don’t care if you’re old, you’re young, you’re black, you’re white, you’re freaking an alien – if you’re trying to take my spot, I can’t let that happen.

“I definitely think I gain something out of this win,” Esparza said. “Maybe people might not know everything about her, but there’s been talks.

“It’s like, ‘Oh, who is this new up-and-comer, what’s going on with her? She’s the female Khabib (Nurmagomedov). She’s this, she’s that.’ I think people might not know so much, but they know that there’s hype behind her, for sure.”

Esparza has won two of her last three fights, although the loss was a controversial split decision defeat to Claudia Gadelha. As for Suarez, she’s undefeated in her young mixed martial arts (MMA) career.

Suarez has won all six of her professional MMA fights, finishing four of them by either knockout or submission. Both Esparza and Suarez are very skilled wrestlers. It will be interesting to see what happens if the fight finds its way to the ground.

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Carla Esparza Relying on Experience Against Tatiana Suarez at UFC 228

Carla Esparza believes her experience will play a factor in her bout with Tatiana Suarez. Esparza is coming off a split decision loss to Claudia Gadelha back in June. She had won two bouts in a row going into that fight. It was her first defeat since F…

Carla Esparza believes her experience will play a factor in her bout with Tatiana Suarez. Esparza is coming off a split decision loss to Claudia Gadelha back in June. She had won two bouts in a row going into that fight. It was her first defeat since Feb. 2017. The inaugural UFC strawweight champion sits […]

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