Zhang Weili is the best women’s mixed martial artist in the world. On Saturday in the co-main event of UFC 312 at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia, Tatiana Suarez found out why.
Zhang (26-3) put on an MMA clinic Saturday and successfully defended her women’s strawweight title with a virtuoso performance in handing Suarez (10-1) her first defeat.
Suarez entered the fight 10-0 and had never surrendered a takedown in the UFC. But after a strong first in which she took the champion down and accumulated three minutes of control time, she spent much of the rest of the fight being bettered by the champion.
Zhang won a unanimous decision while delivering the one-time American Olympic wrestling hopeful a frightful beating. Judges scored it 49-46 twice and 49-45 for Zhang. I had it 49-46 for the champion, as well, in what might have been the best performance of her career.
“I was well-prepared for this fight,” Zhang said in the Octagnon. “I have the world’s best coaching.”
Suarez showed incredible grit and kept coming forward, looking for the takedown and the potential for a submission that might have pulled out the fight. She never got close after the first, though.
Zhang defended every takedown attempt after the first successfully. She had nearly 40 percent control time, but she wasn’t just holding Suarez down. She was working for submissions and delivering hard punches. Zhang had the edge in the grappling, dominated the stand-up and was in better condition.
She successfully defended 14 of 15 takedown attempts against arguably the best wrestler in the female ranks. She landed 60 percent of her significant strikes, connecting on 53 of 87 while holding Suarez to just 12 total significant strikes. Eight of those strikes by Suarez came in the third and otherwise, she barely laid a glove on the champion.
In the final two rounds, when the fight was nominally on the line, Zhang connected on 23 of 26 significant strikes, landed a takedown and defended all five of Suarez’s attempts. When the final bell rang, Suarez was completely spent and her faced looked as if she'd been hit with a crowbar. Zhang, by contrast, looked like she could have gone a few more rounds.
She couldn’t have performed much better and has basically lapped the field at this point. She’s won five in a row and set a standard that may help her one day challenge Amanda Nunes for recognition as the greatest women’s fighter in MMA history.
(Editor's note: Kevin Iole will have a post-fight column and a video at the conclusion of the UFC 312 news conference).