Preview: Noche UFC Prelims

Strawweights

Tatiana Suarez (10-1) vs. Amanda Lemos (15-4-1)

Odds: Suarez (-450); Lemos (+350)

Assuming the card order remains unchanged between now and Saturday night, the placement of this bout is bizarre bordering on disrespectful. Despite featuring two former title challengers—one of whom fought for the belt in her last outing—and being the only matchup of Top 5 fighters on the entire bill, Suarez and Lemos are slated to appear in the middle of the prelims, right before two fights in which the loser will probably be cut.

Having said that, Suarez does have a lot to prove here. She did in fact fight for the belt in February, but the nature of her loss to Weili Zhang put her future in doubt. Since the moment she arrived in the UFC nine years ago, the Californian was seen as a champ in waiting, dependent only on her staying healthy long enough to make her way to a title shot. When she finally did so at UFC 312, the loss was so one-sided, and Suarez looked so inert, that the question became, “Is Suarez shot, or is Zhang just that good?”

Both of those things can be true. Zhang is one of the most dominant fighters in the world, and she has made a lot of exceptional women look average over the last six or seven years. However, Suarez was overwhelmed even in the areas where she figured to present a problem for the champ. Her size, athleticism and above all her incredible wrestling were expected to present a challenge, but Suarez was never in the fight, and when they got their hand on one another in the clinch or on the ground, Zhang was obviously the stronger and more physically imposing woman.

Lemos is several years older than Suarez but has shown few signs of slowing thus far. Compact, athletic and extremely powerful by the standard of the division, “Amandinha” is a striker by preference who occupies the gray area between technically sound kickboxer and mean-spirited brawler. She has fast, powerful hands and operates well from outside as well as inside.

Lemos’ ground game is even less refined and more dependent on aggression and physicality than her striking. When she is faced with a foe that is not a technical wizard in that area, her sheer horsepower is usually enough to let her determine where the fight takes place.

When Lemos encounters someone who is her match in fundamentals, physicality or both, however, the results are usually ugly. That has been the case in all three of her strawweight losses, to Virna Jandiroba, Zhang and especially to Jessica Andrade, who bullied Lemos the way Lemos does to most other fighters.

That should make this fight very straightforward to predict, and the wide odds bear that out. If Suarez is still who we thought she was, and just had an all-time terrible outing against an all-time great fighter in February, then she is exactly the kind of fighter who should have an easy outing against Lemos’ demonstrated weaknesses.

I’m leaning the other way, though. If Suarez’s showing against Zhang was due in part to her own physical decline, if her appalling litany of illnesses and injuries have finally caught up with her at 34, the matchup flips on its head. Suarez’s striking has been a work in progress, gradually improving across her UFC tenure, but it is dependent in great measure on her length, speed and above all the threat of her wrestling.

The first of those three assets isn’t going anywhere, but if she has slowed, and if she struggles to get Lemos down and keep her down, Suarez will be stuck on the feet against one of the most aggressive, hardest-hitting women in the division. That’s the pick here, sadly: Lemos via decision after lumping up a version of Suarez who is starting to look like a shell of her best self.



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Hernandez vs. Ferreira
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Suarez vs. Lemos
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