Namajunas: I strongly wanted to pull out of fight after McGregor attack

Conor McGregor heard that Khabib Nurmagomedov had words with SBGi’s Artem Lobov, so he and over a dozen of his most deficient hangers on hatched a plan. They had lots of time to do it, as they all dashed to a jet and flew across the Atlantic. The fools had members of their press team unlock the facility doors and then the group tried to attack a fighter bus with Nurmagomedov on it. Throwing a beer in the bus’s face may have failed, so McGregor improvised and threw a hand truck at the bus. He succeeded in showering fighters with glass to the extent that two were injured and couldn’t fight.

They also succeeded in amusing Nurmagomedov. UFC VP Reed Harris said some people on the bus were in fear for their lives. Rose Namajunas was asked at the post-fight press conference if she thought about pulling out of the title fight.

Yeah, I did, said Namajunas, as transcribed by Dave Doyle for MMA Fighting. But I think a lot of times leading up to many fights I’ll question that. I’ll doubt myself or I’ll question myself, but the voice was strong this time.

The [hand truck] nearly came at my window. Thankfully to the bus driver he was on point. He was backing up the bus as it came to my window but it ended up hitting Michael Chiesa in the head instead unfortunately. So thanks Michae. It shook me up because I didn’t know how far it was going to escalate.

All the guys inside wanted to fight back and jump out of the bus but I don’t know if they are going to open the door and all come in. They are obviously not directly after me but I’m caught in this scenario. My imagination goes crazy through all the things I’ve been through in the past. I know anyone could have had a gun or a knife. I jump to the negative pretty quickly. It was a lot of thoughts going into this fight but I’m grateful to be in one piece and be happy, healthy and safe.

I’ve just been in tough spots before. I’ve had manual fights before. They were on autopilot kinda thing. This was just another level of that and a new challenge and a new development in my growth, so, I welcome that. I just wanted to, I don’t know, just prove to myself that I can once again face my fears and it will pay off.

It paid off with a unanimous decision. And because Rose is the exact opposite of Conor McGregor, and the champion we need, she closed with grace.

This whole camp I was thinking about how [Jedrzejczyk] did this five times in a row, said Namajunas. I have a lot of respect for her.