UFC women’s strawweight champion, Rose Namajunas, talks about her future in the Octagon.
UFC strawweight champion Rose Namajunas already set her sights on who should be her next title challenger, as well as when she would like to step back into the Octagon. In a media scrum at UFC Denver, ‘Thug Rose’ explained to MMA Fighting how she would like to get back in the spring and would like to take on heavy-hitter, Jessica Andrade.
“I like fighting in the spring and fall, it’s a good time for me,” Namajunas said. “That’s what I expressed already. We’ll see how things happen. I don’t see how anybody else other than Andrade will make sense. I know she wants to stay active and she wants to have another fight until I’m ready and that’s cool, but if not, I’d love to have that chance at her.”
Despite naming Andrade as the most suitable candidate for challenging her title next, Namajunas also mentioned other interesting names.
“Andrade definitely shook things up, even though, obviously, Joanna (Jedrzejczyk) got back into the winning streak of things, and she’s going up,” Namajunas said. “So that’s kind of interesting, as well. Tatiana (Suarez), she’s obviously starting to make some noise and stuff like that, but at the moment, all I’m focused on is being a better martial artist and a better athlete one day at a time.”
Rose Namajunas is currently on a three-fight winning streak, with two wins over former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk and a victory over Michelle Waterson preceding those title bouts. Her last loss came in July 2016, when she dropped a split decision to Karolina Kowalkiewicz.