Rose: It’s ‘a good thing’ that people aren’t talking about me as much
Rose Namajunas: “For me to have this little thing where people were talking about me and then not talking about me, to me it’s irrelevant. It is a good thing.”
Before season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter debuted, UFC president Dana White predicted that we might see the next Ronda Rousey. It turned out he was talking about Rose Namajunas. ‘Thug Rose’ had a compelling fight style, compelling personality, compelling backstory, and her looks were, well, compelling.
White has said of his earliest days running the UFC, that he knew the product was right, but maybe the time wasn’t. The time was too early for Namajunas. She fell in the finals to Carla Esparza, who left the Octagon as the first UFC women’s strawweight champion.
Then Esparza was beaten by Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who possesses that difficult to define but impossible to ignore “It Factor.” Namajunas isn’t it right now. That kind of fall has shaken a lot of fighters, taken them out of their game, and many times out of the game.
But Namajunas has character. Further, she is only 23, and just 2-2 in MMA, plus TUF exhibition bout wins over top-10 opponents Randa Markos and Joanna Calderwood. There is plenty of time to shine, and ‘Thug Rose’ is happy with how things are unfolding.
“Sometimes when you push something or you force something too much, the progress doesn’t happen the way it should,” said Namajunas to Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. “There’s a process to everything. If you fast track or make shortcuts in any way and you get too much of one thing, you’re just out of balance. I’m happy about the way things are going.”
“People are gonna go up and down and people are gonna come in and out of this sport. For me to have this little thing where people were talking about me and then not talking about me, to me it’s irrelevant. It is a good thing. There’s pros and cons to everything and I choose to look at the positives. It is giving me more time to just progress.”
“Joanna is definitely the person to fight. She’s exciting and I feel like I match up really well with her. Anybody else is just anybody that doesn’t have the belt. So, it’s just one more stepping stone in order for me to get the belt.”
Rose Namajunas fights Angela Hill at UFC 192 on Saturday in Houston, Texas.