Athletes
Tracy Cortez Wants To Make Up For Lost Time
After A Health Scare Forced Her Out Of Her Long-Awaited Return, Cortez Is Back At Full Strength And Ready To Make A Statement At UFC 317
Tracy Cortez has been itching to get back in the Octagon since suffering her first defeat in seven years last July against Rose Namajunas.
Originally slated to face Miranda Maverick later that month, Cortez was offered the chance to step in for Maycee Barber and headline the UFC Denver event against the former strawweight queen on just two weeks’ notice.
It was a major risk for Cortez, who was riding an 11-fight win streak at the time, but the potential reward was too big to pass up. The 31-year-old battled for the full 25 minutes, but it was Namajunas who ultimately got her hand raised.
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Opportunities like that are always a gamble but, regardless of the outcome, it was still a win for Cortez, who walked away with valuable lessons that will help her growth moving forward.
“Going against someone like Rose, someone that’s going to be a Hall of Famer, a former champion, it was definitely a great learning experience,” Cortez said. “I don’t take the loss too heavy only because I know within myself, with the right preparation, I can go against anybody. It showed me I can go five rounds, I can do championship rounds, and my cardio was there. I felt great, I just wasn’t prepared.”
“I went in there very wild; I was just swinging. I think the Mexican came out of me where I just wanted to box and hurt the girl. I didn’t have a gameplan. We just went in there and give it all we got.”
Cortez was ready to get back in the Octagon five months later in a rescheduled bout against Maverick, until a sudden health scare forced her to put her career on pause.
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“It was scary,” Cortez said. “I was going through a hard time. It’s a lot of personal stuff but I wasn’t able to leave my house comfortably. Finally, I went to go get checked and they found, thank God non-cancerous, but they found tumors in my abdominal area, and I had to get surgery. It was scary, especially with the history in my family and the background of my mom and brother passing away with cancer, so it was a scary thing for me and thank God I had a good support system to get me through that.”
“The second I got healthy, the second I got healed, I was like, ‘You guys, I’m ready. Let’s get back to it.’ And it was my team that has to hold me back because I’m a workhorse. When I’m in the gym, I don’t want to say I’m the first one there because I tend to be late, but I’m definitely the last one leaving.”
Despite doing everything she could to put her name out there, no opportunities came her way. Cortez began pressing her management as early as January to find her a fight. February, March - radio silence. It wasn’t until April that they came to her with a date and an opponent.
She returns to the Octagon this Saturday at UFC 317: Topuria vs Oliveira, International Fight Week’s premier event, to face Top 10 contender Viviane Araújo, who most recently handed rising star Karine Silva her first loss inside the Octagon.
The last time Cortez suffered a defeat, she followed it with an 11-fight win streak. Coming off her second career loss to Namajunas last summer, she expects nothing less this time around. Feeling the “healthiest she’s felt in a long time,” Cortez is determined to get past the Araújo on June 28 and still fight two more times before the year is out.
UFC 317: Topuria vs Oliveira took place live from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 28, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!
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