Jessica Andrade wants a title a fight with the newly-crowned strawweight champion, Rose Namajunas.
Jessica Andrade wants a piece of the new strawweight champion, Rose Namajunas. Following Rose’s TKO win over Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 217, Andrade believes she’s the top contender at the moment and will not underestimate Rose, like the former champion did.
“Now the division will see some variety,” Andrade told Combate. “Namajunas looked really good, knocked her out. She’s a really tough opponent. Since I’m number one in the rankings, I can ask for this fight, and I will. I will train a lot, I’ll dedicate myself and I’ll be completely different from Joanna. I won’t underestimate her. Rose has a warrior’s spirit and won the belt. I didn’t think it was going to happen, but every fight’s different.”
In Andrade’s opinion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk could have still been the champion if she had taken her opponent more seriously.
“Joanna lost just like any other athlete can lose on any given day. Maybe she wasn’t having a good day, maybe she didn’t train enough, but I believe the truth is that she really underestimated her opponent. She tried to get inside Rose’s head with mind games, but it didn’t work, right? I won’t underestimate her because I see great potential in Rose. I can’t wait for this fight. Let’s create some buzz on social media and make it happen.”
More recently, Andrade defeated Claudia Gadelha via unanimous decision to bounce back from her unanimous decision loss to Jedrzejczyk, when they fought for the title back in May.