How Rose Namajunas forgave herself for boring UFC defeat
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Over her years as a championship-level fighter, Rose Namajunas earned a reputation as one to watch.
With a 4-1 record in strawweight title fights between 2017 and 2021 and four $50,000 performance bonuses, “Thug Rose” was both champion and entertainer.
On May 8, 2022 — a day after her 115-pound title loss to Carla Esparza — Namajunas was neither, with the pair engaging in one of the least-entertaining, five-round snoozers in UFC history.
Both the loss itself and the nature of the fight rocked her.
“I kind of took for granted the fact that I’m just a naturally entertaining fighter, that I just have a lot of natural starpower,” Namajunas, who returns to action Saturday (3 p.m. ET, ESPN) in Paris for the first time since that night, recently told The Post via Zoom.
It’s not uncommon for fighters to put out a statement on social media following a loss.
Namajunas’, a five-line screencap on Instagram, was brief.
“Sorry to everyone I f–ked up,” she wrote, “definitely feel like a s–tty human being but this will make me a better hats off to Carla and thanks to everyone who’s been there for me.”
Being “better” in Namajunas’ mind was a process which she said began with taking responsibility for her part in the way the fight — in which neither woman reached double-digit strikes landed until the third frame — went down, followed by forgiving herself.
With reflection, Namajunas (11-5, seven finishes) gained a greater appreciation for “the entertaining things that I have done in the past and what it takes in order to do that.”
While her top priority remains to come out the other side, protect herself and get back to her family “in the best shape possible,” she understands she can no longer take it as a given that fans naturally want to watch her compete without providing some entertainment value along the way.
“It is part of my job,” Namajunas says of putting on a show. “… I’m not gonna take for granted that I have a special gift in that that’s what people watch me for. I want to give a little more appreciation to that and not just be like, ‘Screw you guys.’ ”
Namajunas takes her newfound clarity into Saturday’s fight against Manon Fiorot, a French flyweight who will test the former two-time strawweight champion in her first bout up at 125 pounds.
Having previously revealed on “The MMA Hour” that she believed she lost the will to be aggressive and hurt someone in the cage, Namajunas thought she might have been done with fighting altogether.
It’s an aspect of being a fighter the cerebral fighter constantly is “ruminating over,” but Namajunas has rationalized it as a sport in which both her and her opponents in the UFC “know what they’re signing up for.”
With that hurdle cleared and a renewed will to fight, Namajunas opted to move up 10 pounds and chase a new goal: rare status as a two-division UFC champion.
Having grown bigger during her now 10-year MMA career, the 31-year-old is happy to get away from the increasingly more challenging weight cuts while also allowing herself to add mass through weight lifting and diet.
“I basically added breakfast into my schedule, because I would never eat breakfast,” Namajunas says, comparing her lifestyle as a strawweight to her new one at flyweight. “I’d fast once a week just to stay down closer to 115, so I haven’t been fasting as much.”
Former champions tend to find themselves in pivotal matchups when shifting weight classes, and Namajunas is no different in drawing Fiorot (10-1, six finishes).
Fiorot was just surpassed for the No. 2 contender in the UFC’s own rankings by New Jersey native Erin Blanchfield, who topped former title contender Taila Santos this past Saturday.
It’s likely either Blanchfield or the winner between Namajunas and Fiorot would be next in line for a championship opportunity.
Who that champion is will be determined shortly, with Alexa Grasso defending the flyweight crown for the first time in a rematch against Valentina Shevchenko just over six months after submitting the long-time champion.
Should Shevchenko emerge the champion once again, that complicates Namajunas’ championship aspirations, as the two are friends who’ve trained together over the years.
Namajunas doesn’t want to think too far ahead given the challenge in front of her this weekend, and she isn’t counting out Grasso to beat her pal again, but she has “a lot of confidence in [Shevchenko] that she’s gonna get the belt back.”
If that comes to pass, however, she believes the two can approach the clash with the mutual respect they have for one another.
“I adore Valentina. I really do appreciate her, what she’s done for me, just being able to train with her, period,” Namajunas said of Shevchenko, whom she considers the top female fighter ever. “So I have a lot of respect for that. And If we were to ever fight, I would just have the approach of, ‘Hey man, we basically went to war in a gym for I don’t know how many months for free, so if we can make some money and inspire some people in the process, then I’d be all down for it.”
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