Tina Black Eyes UFC History in TUF 34 Strawweight Final

Nine fighters have walked out of a Ultimate Fighter season and eventually strapped UFC gold around their waist. Tina Black wants to be number ten — and she says it'll happen "soon." First, though, she has to win Saturday's TUF 34 strawweight final at UFC Vegas 121 in Las Vegas.

Black, whose real name is Valesca Machado, arrives at 15-4 with one no-contest, not counting the two exhibition wins that carried her through the house. The 30-year-old was Daniel Cormier's first overall pick this season and made the final by beating Natalia Alves and Delphine Benouaich, the latter an 8-2 strawweight with four submission wins to her name. Standing across from her Saturday is fellow Team Cormier fighter Melissa Amaya.

This isn't a fresh face who lucked into a reality-show spotlight, either. Black held titles in both Invicta FC and A1 Combat before the call came, and she went 7-1 across her eight bouts between a failed Contender Series shot in 2021 and her arrival on TUF. She's been building toward this for years.

The Two-Fights-One-Night Perspective

Fighting twice in quick succession on the show didn't rattle her, and she explained why. When she won her Invicta belt, she says, she had to fight twice on the same night — without knowing her opponents in advance or the order she'd face them. Compared to that, she framed TUF as familiar territory, half the work already done by an experience she'd survived before.

There was drama, too. Black got into beef with two other contestants, and she admitted the TV friction bothered her father watching at home. She waved off the idea that she was playing a character, saying she doesn't take disrespect quietly — a line, she noted with a laugh, straight out of her upbringing.

Respect Across the Cage

For all the house tension, Black had nothing but praise for her opponent. Amaya punched her ticket by finishing Anna Melisano and GiGi Canuto, and she survived a tight armbar and other submission attempts along the way. Black called her a genuine warrior who kept her composure when most fighters would've tapped.

As for how she plans to win, Black wouldn't offer a script — no spoilers, she joked. She said she doesn't know exactly how it'll go, only that she expects her hand raised at the end. The plan after that is simple: add another trophy to the shelf at her sister's place, then keep moving toward the belt worn by the names she idolizes, Amanda Nunes and Alex Pereira among them.