Rose Namajunas details trauma suffered during and after Conor McGregor bus attack

In “Thug Rose Namajunas’ episode of UFC Year of the Fighter, a new UFC FIGHT PASS original series, Namajunas recounts the year she won the strawweight title, overcoming intense emotional challenges unleashed by Joanna Jedrzejczyk‘s merciless mental warfare, and from her experience on the bus that was attacked by Conor McGregor just before UFC 223.

It was like an eternity being in that bus, because I had no idea who that was that was attacking us, recalled Namajunas. All of a sudden I see a big ol’ fist kind of bang on my window and then I see one of the security guards grab one of the dudes. I didn’t know it was Conor until a little bit later. When he threw the dolly, the bus was backing up into the elevator spot as he threw it to the window right in front of me. But had the bus not been moving, it would have hit my window.

In my head, once I found out it was Conor, I was a little relieved, but I still was on edge. It just took me back to when I was a kid, riding to school through bad neighborhoods on a bus and people throwing s*** at our bus. And I’ve never been completely cornered like that. We were just sitting there not in control. So what did I do in that moment? I said The Lord’s Prayer again and then it did make me feel a little bit better at that moment, and it got me through that tough moment.

And everything that was from my childhood, this is what I fought to get out of, and this is like back to stupid street s*** that I don’t want to be around that any more. That’s what I fought my way out of. So here I find myself again in this same spot, but then at the same time, I came back around it, like, this is also what I’m here for. So I took it as motivation to show the world that’s not gonna stop me.

Despite being profoundly rattled, Namajunas went through with the fight, and defeated Namajunas, but it was an ordeal.

Arriving to the arena itself was hard, said Namajunas. Super hard. Because I was super stressed out from the incident on the bus and going back to the same arena with the same elevator and then the noises of the bus kind of took me back to two days earlier. I was super shell shocked from that. Super tense.

I was so tense that when [coach Trevor Wittman] was taping my hands, I was clinching my fist super tight. I turn over my hand and my hand was bleeding. I was like dude, I need to chill out. I need to breathe or something.

Even during the walkout, Namajunas reported being tense, but said it all faded once the fight started. As for Conor, immediately after the attack, UFC president Dana White was furious.

This is the most disgusting thing that has ever happened in the history of the company, and there is a warrant out for Conor McGregor’s arrest, said White. Eventually, the footage was used to promote a fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov. Although The Eagle lost a round for the first time in his UFC career, tapped The Notorious in Round 4. Nurmagomedov is open to a rematch, too. For $100 million.