Rose
Namajunas isn’t looking to surpass Manon
Fiorot for a flyweight title shot.
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Namajunas moved up to flyweight after losing her strawweight title
to Carla
Esparza via split decision in 2022. “Thug” suffered a
hard-fought unanimous decision loss against Fiorot in her flyweight
debut the following year. Namajunas has since racked up consecutive
decision victories over Amanda
Ribas and Tracy
Cortez, earning relevance in title conversations.
Namajunas is scheduled to fight top contender Erin
Blanchfield in the co-main event at
UFC Edmonton at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. A
win would likely make Namajunas a potential contender for the next
gold bid at 125 pounds against Valentina
Shevchenko. While Shevchenko is a training partner of
Namajunas, “Thug” wouldn’t mind getting paid for what they would do
in training anyway.
“That would be my dream matchup,” Namajunas told ESPN. “Obviously I’m a huge admirer of
[Shevchenko]. Just as a martial artist, I think she’s like the best
martial artist in the womens’ and just in general… I had this goal
of being a two-division champion when I first started. And here we
are, so it’s sort of like my last goal… I really do admire her a
lot and respect her a lot. So that would be kind of weird. But we
also train together. So it would be like, at least we’re getting
paid for doing what we’re doing.”
However, Fiorot is currently undefeated in seven UFC outings,
including victories over both Namajunas and Blanchfield. Aside from
a spectacular finish over Blanchfield, Namajunas doesn’t see
herself leapfrogging Fiorot for the next flyweight title shot.
“I think after Manon [Fiorot], yes,” Namajunas said. “And I think
[if] in spectacular fashion, then of course. I have seen a bunch of
headlines of me saying that I wanna skip [Fiorot]… I never said
that. I think she deserves it next but I would like to be next
after that for sure.”