UFC president Dana White raised eyebrows in mid-December when he told BT Sport that former strawweight champion Rose Namajunas didn’t want a shot at reclaiming the belt from current titleholder Zhang Weili.
What I’m hearing is that Rose doesn’t want a title shot, said White. Rose doesn’t want to fight for a title. I don’t think she did. She doesn’t want to fight for the title, so we’ll see how it all plays out. If we’re looking at rankings and how it plays out, it would play out Weili vs. Carla Esparza.
During a recent appearance on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, Namajunas’s coach and fiancee Pat Barry said that that’s not the case.
That was just a misunderstanding of some sort, said Barry, as transcribed by Tristen Critchfield for Sherdog. 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 also appeared on the podcast, and said the same thing – she wants to fight for the belt.
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, said Namajunas. 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.
“Thug Rose” beat Joanna Jedrzejczyk via TKO in Round 1 for the belt in 2017, defended it in a rematch via decision in 2018, and then lost the belt to Jessica Andrade via getting slammed on her head in 2019. Andrade lost the belt to Zhang, and then lost to Namajunas in a rematch.
Somebody dropping you on your head like that, that’s not cool, man, said Namajunas. 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.
What do you think UG? Who do you want to see Zhang defend against next, Namajunas or Esparza?
