Tatiana Suarez Sees UFC Vegas 124 Win as Route to Mackenzie Dern Title Fight
A third straight win over Virna Jandiroba could put Tatiana Suarez next in line to challenge Mackenzie Dern for the strawweight belt.
Tatiana Suarez has a clear target beyond UFC Vegas 124: a strawweight title fight with Mackenzie Dern in 2027. First, she has to get past Virna Jandiroba on November 7. Suarez believes that win would make her case hard to ignore, extending her run to three victories and placing her among the division’s leading contenders.
Her fight sits on the undercard before Johnny Walker meets Waldo Cortes-Acosta in the heavyweight main event. For Suarez, the stakes are more direct than a spot on a prominent card: Jandiroba is the one fighter ranked above her besides former champion Weili Zhang, according to the Meta UFC women’s strawweight rankings. A win would settle the immediate question of which contender has the stronger claim to the next title opportunity.
A narrow path to the next title fight
Suarez hasn’t fought for the belt since losing to Zhang in February 2025. She has since beaten Amanda Lemos and Loopy Godinez, and a victory over Jandiroba would give her three consecutive wins. Asked at media day whether the winner should challenge for the title in 2027, Suarez answered with confidence: “Yeah, absolutely, because we’re at the top of the division other than Weili.”
She added: “I just feel like it makes sense that we’re gonna be next in line for the belt.” That confidence rests on the division’s current shape as described in the source: Zhang is ranked No. 1, while Jandiroba is the only other woman above Suarez. Beating Jandiroba would therefore give Suarez a direct result against the contender closest to her in the rankings.
There’s a complication in the title picture. Zhang’s next move remains uncertain after her attempt to win the flyweight championship, including whether she’ll return to strawweight. That leaves the timing and the identity of the next challenger open. Suarez can’t control that decision, but she can make the strongest available case by winning the bout in front of her.
Dern is now the champion Suarez hopes to face. The Brazilian claimed the belt by beating Jandiroba at UFC 321 on October 25, 2025, giving Suarez a meaningful point of comparison ahead of her own fight. A win over Jandiroba wouldn’t guarantee a title shot, but it would connect Suarez’s recent form to the champion’s path to the belt.
What Suarez took from her loss to Zhang
Suarez entered her February 2025 fight with Zhang unbeaten at 10-0. The loss ended a long pursuit of the championship for a fighter who won The Ultimate Fighter in 2016, then spent four years sidelined by injuries before returning in 2023. She says the defeat changed how she understands adversity and what a high-stakes fight demands.
“I took a lot from that fight, obviously,” Suarez said. “There’s just no way you don’t take anything from a loss, you know? For me, it’s helped me in a lot of ways mentally.” She described the bout as the first time she had faced that kind of adversity in a fight, while stressing that she kept pressing after Zhang landed clean shots.
“I’m never just going to be like, ‘OK, I’m done,’” Suarez said. She also pointed to fight IQ and skill as important lessons from the experience. The read is that the loss gave her more than a reminder of how difficult Zhang is to beat: it showed her where she needs to improve and how she responds when a fight stops going to plan.
Jandiroba is the immediate test
All of that title talk depends on getting through Jandiroba at the Meta UFC Apex. Suarez has momentum from wins over Lemos and Godinez, but Jandiroba is positioned above her in the rankings and has already fought Dern for the championship. That makes this matchup a practical test of Suarez’s contender status, not just another step on a winning streak.
The result could clarify the pecking order while the division waits for Zhang’s plans to become clearer. If Suarez wins, she’ll have three straight victories and a win over the only woman ranked above her besides Zhang. If she loses, the case for her being next becomes much harder to make.
Suarez’s ambition is to reach the title again with a better understanding of what the biggest fights require. UFC Vegas 124 gives her a chance to turn that experience into a concrete claim on the next opportunity. Before she can think about Dern, she has to earn the result against Jandiroba.
