Rose
Namajunas wants to rediscover her motivation before returning
to competition in the
Ultimate Fighting Championship.
The 34-year-old admitted during a recent podcast appearance that
she has spent the past few months evaluating her future after
multiple disappointing results and the lengthy recovery from
injuries sustained in her last bout.
Rose Namajunas discusses injuries, recent losses and her UFC
future
Namajunas still intends to fight again, but she wants to make sure
she has the right reason for returning. The former strawweight
champion lost to Natalia
Silva at
UFC 324 in January and had to undergo surgery shortly after her
fight with Silva to repair damage caused by an accidental eye
poke.
“It was like a three-month process,” Namajunas said on the „Weighing In“ podcast. “After the fight, I had to get this surgery
right away. They put this weird silicone tube in my eye. It was a
really easy surgery, though. It was just kind of uncomfortable. I
couldn’t blow my nose. I couldn’t rub my eye because it could pop
out, so I had to be off — no contact training for three
months.”
She also revealed that she suffered a torn ulnar collateral
ligament in her thumb during the recovery process. Namajunas was
finally cleared to resume training in April, but has yet to
schedule her next bout. The aforementioned setbacks have left her
contemplating her future.
“That’s why I’ve been sitting out for a while because I’m trying to
rediscover, OK, what am I doing now?” Namajunas added. “The last
three opportunities that I had — the Natalia fight, the Erin
Blanchfield fight and the Manon
[Fiorot] fight — I was told that I would get a title shot with
a win. I came up short in all three of those. I’m at a point in my
life where I’m thinking about family stuff and all these things,
and next steps, future things. So, I do want to compete and I still
want to fight again, but I want to make sure that when I’m going in
there, I’m going for a purpose and a reason.”
Namajunas is 1-2 in her last three bouts and 3-3 since moving up to
flyweight.