Last month, UFC president Dana White
indicated that Rose
Namajunas did not want the next strawweight title shot.
It was a strange statement considering that Namajunas had avenged a
previous loss to Jessica
Andrade at UFC 251 in July to potentially solidify herself as
the No. 1 contender for Weili
Zhang’s belt.
“I don’t think she did [like the pressure of being champion],”
White told BT
Sport. “We’ll see how that all plays out. If you look at the
rankings and how it plays out, it would play out Weili vs. Carla
Esparza.”
At the time, Pat Barry, who
is Namajunas’ coach and fiancée, denied White’s claim, and he
further addressed the situation during a recent appearance on the
”UFC Unfiltered” podcast.
“That was just a misunderstanding of some sort,” Barry said. “I’m
sure the UFC knows what they’re doing. Dana White knows what
they’re doing. We know the call is coming. There must have been
some miscommunication somewhere, but she absolutely—Yeah, of
course, the title fight, but anybody. She’ll fight somebody today.
This girl is ready ready.”
Namajunas, meanwhile, appeared on the show and revealed that she
has been watching Zhang for quite some time now – even more so
since the Chinese fighter became 115-pound champion.
“I’ve been watching Weili ever since I saw her fight Tecia
Torres a while back [at UFC 235], I started to have my eye on
her,” Namajunas said. “Especially ever since she became champion,
I’ve been scouting her out and breaking her down, game-planning for
her because yeah, she’s got the belt, that’s really what you have
to go off of.”
Namajunas enjoyed a brief reign as strawweight champion before
suffering a KO slam loss to Andrade in their first meeting at UFC
237. “Thug” Rose contemplated retirement in the aftermath of that
defeat but ultimately reconsidered. Being able to avenge that loss
played a big part in allowing Namajunas to move forward. Now she’s
ready to make another run at UFC gold.
“Somebody dropping you on your head like that, that’s not cool,
man,” Namajunas said. “I gotta fix that mistake because I can’t go
around walking around the streets knowing that that could possibly
happen. I need to fix that mistake and I need to make those
adjustments and make sure that I’ll protect myself from here on
out. So I corrected that mistake, I put that behind me, and I’m
ready for the belt.”