Why Rose Namajunas responded to McGregor apology with ‘F@#$ that’

During UFC 223 fight week, SBGi’s Artem Lobov had words with Khabib Nurmagomedov and his cohorts. When then UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor heard about it, he dragged a dozen members of his hangers-on away from a losing argument with a doorknob, got on a plane, and flew to New York to attack ‘The Eagle’. They learned from their media group that Nurmagomedov would be on a fighter bus, snuck into the parking garage, and then ran around haplessly making grrrrr noises, until McGregor himself threw a hand truck at a window.

The fighter they were attempting to intimidate was greatly amused, and on Saturday took the title that had been held by McGregor. The fighter they were supporting ended up being pulled from his fight, due to his role in the hapless attack. Two innocent fighters were injured by McGregor to the point they couldn’t fight. And UFC women’s strawweight champ Rose Namajunas, who travels with an Emotional Support Dog, was badly shaken.

‘Thug’ Rose appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show podcast and was asked if she was over the incident.

“No, man,” replied Namajunas, as transcribed by Chamatkar Sandhu for ESPN. “When we got back home, we stayed upstairs, locked in our room because we were just paranoid about how crazy the week was. It was really tough. I’m still trying not to leave the house too much or there will be times when I’m just like, ‘Yeah we should just go home,’ like I just have a weird feeling. I live in a very nice neighborhood, there’s nothing that really goes on around here. So, for me to be like sketch. … I’m still paranoid about everything. I have a therapist that I go see.”

“I did get an Instagram message from him, but I don’t really know if that was really him. To me, that doesn’t seem like the type of, it just didn’t seem like a sincere apology from an actual person. To me, I didn’t really, I guess, consider it a real apology.”

“It said, ‘I’m sorry for what happened,’ but then he immediately went on to like justifying what he did and stuff like that and the reasons why he did it. That to me was like, it really doesn’t matter. I don’t care what beef he’s got with who. That’s none of my business, I don’t need to know that information. Do you know what I mean? That doesn’t do anything for me. So there was an apology and I’m a pretty cool person and I always accept apologies, but to me, I’m like a personal person, I like face to face. That’s how I like to handle things. I feel like anything can be worked out, you just gotta talk through it as adults.”

Namajunas summed up her response in two words.

“I said ‘f*** that,'” said Namajunas. “I said call Pat. I just put Pat’s phone number and said, ‘f*** that’ to whatever your message is and call him.”

McGregor never called, and Rose’s boyfriend former UFC heavyweight Pat Barry doesn’t even believe it was Notorious.

“That didn’t come from Conor,” said Barry. “That apology didn’t come from him.”