Rose
Namajunas is gradually getting more comfortable as a
flyweight.
Advertisement
The former strawweight champion earned her second victory at 125
pounds, as she captured a unanimous decision triumph against
Tracy
Cortez in the UFC
on ESPN 59 headliner at Ball Arena in Denver on Saturday night.
Namajunas dropped Cortez in the opening stanza and then cruised
from there, blending striking and takedowns to keep her
short-notice opponent off balance.
“Absolutely I’m happy with it. I’m happy with one, having very
little injury, two, being able to win and three, I feel like it was
a pretty exciting fight,” Namajunas said at the post-fight press
conference. “I wanted a finish, of course. It’s been a while since
I have finished somebody. It’s been since what like, 2020, [2021]
or something? I felt like I was pretty close at least and dropped
her at first. Overall, very happy.”
Cortez, who stepped in for Maycee
Barber, was a resilient adversary who had some of her best
moments late in the fight. Still, it wasn’t enough to get the
better of a seasoned former champion who usually had an answer for
everything her opponent had to offer.
“I knew she was going to be really tough. I guess she was a little
more in shape than I thought she was going to be,” Namajunas said.
“But at the same time, I could also feel the moments where she
started to get a little bit of hope and kind of pressure and go for
it, she would kind of get deflated when I would come back with
something. She would recharge again and do soemthing else. [I was]
a little bit surprised with her ability to keep trying, keep going
for something even after getting shut down. But I knew she had a
lot of heart.”
Namajunas was successful on all five of her takedown attempts in
the fight, as she held the edge in an area where Cortez might have
been expected to have an advantage.
“It’s awesome because I knew she was really good at getting back up
when she would get taken down in her fights,” Namajunas said. “I
knew that her wrestling was really good offensively, but I thought
she was gonna wrestle more. I didn’t want to try to hold her down
too much, but I didn’t want to waste my energy trying to keep her
down. It actually worked out really well. I was in mount for a long
time. I’ve just got to work on my finishing shots on the top a
little bit more ,but overall I was really happy with that.”
Namajunas began her run at flyweight with a loss to Manon
Fiorot, but she has rebounded to post consecutive triumphs
against Cortez and Amanda
Ribas. According to the Colorado-based fighter, it took some
time to find her footing at 125 pounds. She was also battling some
injuries that have improved with time.
“Putting on that muscle, I think the last fight that I had at
flyweight, going into that fight I felt a little bit slower,”
Namajunas said. “It turns out that both of my shoulders were
partially torn going into that fight. It was just taking a while
for me…all the stuff we had worked on, it was just building blocks.
I had to build my momentum to get to this point. My sholders feel
really good. My right one still kind of aches a little bit
sometimes. I’ve just got to fully heal, and then I think it’s just
gonna keep getting better. There’s a lot to improve on still.”
During her post-fight interview, Namajunas mentioned an interest in
fighting for a women’s version of the BMF title. However, she
admitted that wasn’t an especially serious sentiment.
“I was just joking, actually,” Namajunas said. “I know Joanna
[Jedrzejczyk] said she would come back for a women’s BMF [title
fight]. That would just be for fun. I love her. I think I was kind
of just joking there. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
For Namajunas, the lure of the UFC flyweight strap far outweighs
that of a potential BMF fight.
“Oh flyweight [title] for sure,” she said. “BMF is fun, I guess.
But yeah, give me the champ.”
Namajunas would also be open to a rebooking against Barber, who
withdrew from the event due to health concerns, though it isn’t
necessarily a priority.
“Hopefully she feels better. I don’t know what’s going on with her
health,” Namajunas said. “I just wish her well. When she feels
better, then maybe we can talk about it. Ultimately, I’m just
forward thinking right now.”