Rose Namajunas isn’t too enthusiastic about the idea of Joanna Jedrzejczyk getting a title rematch. At UFC 217, Namajunas stunned the mixed martial arts (MMA) world with her first-round finish of Jedrzejczyk. The former champion was just one win …
Rose Namajunas isn’t too enthusiastic about the idea of Joanna Jedrzejczyk getting a title rematch. At UFC 217, Namajunas stunned the mixed martial arts (MMA) world with her first-round finish of Jedrzejczyk. The former champion was just one win away from tying Ronda Rousey’s record for most UFC title defenses by a female. During a […]
Mixed martial arts is known for many things.
Violence. More blood than most people can stomach. Awful T-shirts. Real bad tattoos. Passionate/drunk fans. Dana White and Joe Rogan screaming at you: This is the biggest fight ever and you’d just be st…
Mixed martial arts is known for many things.
Violence. More blood than most people can stomach. Awful T-shirts. Real bad tattoos. Passionate/drunk fans. Dana White and Joe Rogan screaming at you: This is the biggest fight ever and you’d just be stupid not to order it, and you know we’re telling you the truth because our faces are so red.
Of all the things the sport is known for, subtlety is not one.
Life is full of shades of gray, of differing and wholly unique personalities and traits and relationships.
Mixed martial arts? Fighters seem to fall into one of two personality traits: Conor McGregor or boring.
And who can blame them? One look at the riches McGregor’s brash and outlandish promotional style has wrought, and it’s enough to make anyone consider taking the same path.
You can talk and say ridiculous things, or you can be respectful and never meet the same heights of superstardom. And forget about padding your bank account.
Which is why it was such a breath of fresh air to see 25-year-old Rose “Thug” Namajunas win the UFC women’s strawweight title last week. Namajunas, from her shorn locks to her anti-MMA demeanor, is more than just a new title-holder. She’s a superstar in the making and an immensely unlikely one.
Joanna Jedrzejczyk is a terrifying cyclone of sharp and pinprick-accurate limbs.
The first time I saw her doing her thing was at a media workout before her fight with Carla Esparza in Dallas a few years ago. The impression I left the gym with that day was: “Oh my God, this is the most terrifying person that’s half my size on this entire planet.”
And she was. Jedrzejczyk brutalized Esparza and took the championship, and she never looked back. But somewhere along the way, “Joanna Champion” became more than just a fun nickname. She started believing her own hype, which is easy to do when you’re obliterating all your peers.
Jedrzejczyk said a lot of hurtful things about Namajunas in the lead-up to their fight on November 4. Jedrzejczyk forgoes the standard MMA trash-talk bible and goes straight for the psychological jugular. During the conference call on October 25 to promote the fight, Namajunas spoke of how she believed her challenge could help promote mental health awareness.
“My dad died and he wasn’t in my life because he had schizophrenia, so it’s been something that my entire family has been fighting against since I can remember,” Namajunas said. “So this fight means a lot to me, and it’s not just about the belt. It’s more than that, and I just want to inspire other people to f–king do whatever the f–k you want to do, and do what makes you happy, and be a good person, and you can overcome anything.
“I’ve overcome some demons in my path, and just, every day I wake up and I’m f–king champion, so that’s just my mindset all of the time, and that’s something that—I think this fight could be a great PSA announcement for mental health awareness.”
Jedrzejczyk’s retort was as unexpected as it was brutal.
“How do you want to be a champion and deal with all of these things? You know what? You are not stronger mentally,” she said. “You are mentally unstable and you are broken already, and I will break you in the fight.”
Not exactly your typical pre-fight banter. Jedrzejczyk kept up the onslaught up to and throughout fight week, leading to an unforgettable visual during the public ceremony of Namajunas praying on stage, her eyes closed tightly, as Jedrzejczyk stood in her face and told her she planned on taking her soul the next day.
Pride goeth before a fall. And Jedrzejczyk fell. Hard.
The great irony of Namajunas’ win at UFC 217 starts with the way it actually happened: Namajunas did it using Jedrzejczyk’s own best tools against her.
Namajunas didn’t go in the Octagon and take Jedrzejczyk down and submit her. That would’ve been an impressive thing, but it could never hold a candle to what actually happened.
Jedrzejczyk has never been untouchable on her feet; she takes more strikes than you might realize. But she’s a survivor, always able to inflict more damage on her opponents than they on her.
Namajunas has never been known as a striker. Her best career moments have always come from grappling.
And yet, Namajunas stood in front of the world champion and beat her senseless with her hands and feet. She dropped her to the canvas multiple times and then finished her by knocking her to the canvas and then pounding her into submission.
Jedrzejczyk said she would mentally break Namajunas and insinuated that she wasn’t stable enough to mentally handle the pressure.
Instead, it was Jedrzejczyk who ended up folding under the weight of the moment.
There is no shame in tapping to strikes, as Jedrzejczyk did. A fighter’s long-term health is more valuable than many athletes even recognize. Anyone who senses they are taking damage with no way to recover must be applauded for recognizing it and doing something about it.
And yet there was something deliciously ironic about the moment unfurling the way it did.
Namajunas didn’t break. She did the breaking.
In 2014, I profiled Namajunas for Bleacher Report. I asked her coach Trevor Wittman what he believed Namajunas’ greatest strength was. Grappling? Athleticism?
No, Wittman said. It was her mental strength.
“You can win with technique. But with the mental aspect, you can reach greatness,” Wittman said. “It’s so cool to see her cry before a fight because she can look at herself in the mirror. She understands that fear is a natural thing in this sport. But she turns fear into belief.”
If Thug Rose goes on to become a genuine megastar—if she follows in the footsteps of Ronda Rousey and finds herself a genuine mainstream attraction—it won’t be the knockout of Jedrzejczyk that sent her there.
It won’t even be found in the minutes after Jedrzejczyk yielded when Dana White draped Namajunas’ new belt over her shoulder and she allowed joyful tears to flow, even if only for a moment. Joe Rogan cornered Namajunas for the typical post-fight interview we’re used to seeing, but it was anything but typical:
Rogan: I’m at a loss for words. That was unbelievable. The winner and new UFC strawweight champion of the world: Rose Namajunas. How does that sound to you?
Namajunas: Man, it sound like buttah. Sound like buttah.
Rogan: Does this even feel real?
Namajunas: No. It feels like a movie right now.
Rogan: There was so much tension and so much emotion leading up to this fight. The weigh-ins, she was saying all kinds of crazy stuff to you. And you were reciting the Lord’s Prayer. What was going through your mind when all this was happening?
Namajunas: There’s so much crap going on in the media, news and stuff. And I just want to try and use my gift of martial arts to try and make this world a better place. Change the world. This belt don’t mean nothing, man. Just be a good person. That’s it. This is extra. This is awesome, but let’s just give each other hugs and be nice, man. I know we fight, but this is entertainment. And afterwards, it’s nothing.
And that is the perfect illustration of why Namajunas is so refreshing, and why she has the kind of star potential promoters dream about, and why it’s likely we’re still in the first few chapters of a story that might just reach incredible heights.
She didn’t comment on the things Jedrzejczyk said about her, though she would have been perfectly within her rights to do so. She didn’t gloat. She didn’t fawn over herself.
“Be a good person,” she said. Let’s just give each other hugs and be nice.
It’s an earnest and simple message. We are highly politicized. Our differences have divided us so greatly that it’s difficult to imagine reconciliation. Social media is a wasteland of snark. Anger is our default setting.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Especially in mixed martial arts. Not everyone needs to be Conor McGregor. We don’t need another Colby Covington, with his penchant for xenophobic comments. We don’t need another super bro like Mike Perry. We have more than enough negativity in our sport.
Thankfully, we have one Rose Namajunas, and she’s the opposite of what we usually get in MMA.
And though she may not be able to offset all the negativity on her own, we’re still pretty lucky that she’s around to try.
Add newly-crowned UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas to the list of new champions from last week’s UFC 217 who don’t think the former champ deserves a rematch. Following a one-sided, trash talk-filled buildup from formerly dominant champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk heading into the fight, Namajunas demolished the Polish striking master only 3:03 into the first […]
Add newly-crowned UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas to the list of new champions from last week’s UFC 217 who don’t think the former champ deserves a rematch.
Following a one-sided, trash talk-filled buildup from formerly dominant champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk heading into the fight, Namajunas demolished the Polish striking master only 3:03 into the first round, dropping her with a massive left hook and follow-up ground shots until referee John McCarthy called the bout a KO victory for ‘Thug’ Rose. But it also appeared that Jedrzejczyk tapped due to the onslaught, something she later denied strongly.
As she was attempting to tie Ronda Rousey’s record for most consecutive female title defenses at UFC 217, Jedrzejczyk wants an immediate rematch with Namajunas. The new titleholder doesn’t agree, however, stating on this week’s The MMA Hourthat the win was so clear, so without controversy, that she couldn’t see how Jedrzejczyk deserved it right now:
“I don’t think so,” Namajunas said. “I don’t know how that could … anything is possible, right? A first-round knockout and she tapped due to strikes. Even though she was still stumbling afterwards, there was still some part of her that tapped. Not a fluke.”
As for whom her next opponent will be, Namajunas said she hasn’t really thought about it, but noted there was a division full of contenders. Instead, she was understandably still focused on unwinding from the biggest match of her life while enjoying her friends and family:
“I thought about the idea of the rest of the division and I wonder who’s gonna call me out and things like that,” Namajunas said. “But I haven’t really thought about who I want to fight yet, no. All I’ve been thinking about the next step — other than decompress, things like that and have a little fun and see the rest of my friends and family — is just making sure our team is tight and solid.”
So while it’s true Jedrzejczyk may have been and still be the most dominant competitor in women’s strawweight history, none of her fights ended in as brutal or shocking a fashion as Namajunas’ lopsided destruction of her did.
Perhaps “Joanna Champion” needs to work her way back up the ladder, where a title shot may await her after one or two more quality wins.
As for Namajunas, she’s going to let the elation of being champion sink in.
Rose Namajunas shocked the mixed martial arts (MMA) world this past weekend (Sat. November 4, 2017) when she knocked out Joanna Jedrzejczyk to capture the UFC 115-pound championship. It all went down as the first of three title fights at UFC 217 on pay-per-view (PPV) from Madison Square Garden, and it was the first of three […]
Rose Namajunas shocked the mixed martial arts (MMA) world this past weekend (Sat. November 4, 2017) when she knocked out Joanna Jedrzejczyk to capture the UFC 115-pound championship.
It all went down as the first of three title fights at UFC 217 on pay-per-view (PPV) from Madison Square Garden, and it was the first of three title changes that would occur before the night’s end. As Namajunas poured on the ground-and-pound to a downed Jedrzejczyk, it seemed as though the Polish knockout artist was actually tapping out to the strikes.
“Joanna Champion” took to The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani earlier today (Mon. November 6, 2017) and was adamant that she didn’t tap out to Namajunas, but was instead trying to get up (quotes via MMA Fighting):
“Someone said that I tapped, I never tapped,” Jedrzejczyk said. “Are you kidding me? It was probably that I was trying to stand up, but I didn’t. It was a piece of a second for me.
“I know it took a while – from the punch to the ground and pound when I had the turtle position, but for me it was a like a piece of a second. I know it was a few long seconds. It looks totally different than people think it is.”
Jedrzejczyk then doubled down on her claim that she did not tap out and explained she was probably trying to get to her feet:
“I didn’t tap…I didn’t tap. I heard this, like two times, but come on…I didn’t tap…I didn’t tap. It was probably I was trying to stand up,” she said again.
“I didn’t know what was going on at that time probably. My body…I couldn’t get the right balance, you know? I didn’t tap, I never tapped and I didn’t tap.”
During the stoppage, Jedrzejczyk claimed that she felt as if she was standing next to the action watching it all unfold. She also claimed to feel slower in warm-ups before the fight got underway:
“Believe me that it was a mistake, and I felt like I was not there,” she explained. “I got cut, she cut me up and I felt like I was standing next to it watching it. I was like, ‘Let me go, what happened?’
“I didn’t see the punch, the power of the punch. She didn’t hit hard, you know, but right to the point, I don’t know what happened.
“I just remember that during the warm-up I was feeling more slower than usually. I don’t know why, I must go to the fight week and figure it out.”
While she still doesn’t think that she tapped out, Jedrzejczyk agrees that it was the propped time to call the fight off:
“Of course, I was out, but I don’t know why,” she replied when asked if it was the right time to stop the action. Maybe there was something wrong with my brain or head, but I don’t know. I will figure out what happened because it’s unusual.
“I have almost 100 fights in my time in boxing and kickboxing. I had 15 fights in MMA and nothing ever happened before. It was the first time I got cut, someone knocked me down.”
In the lead-up to her UFC 217 strawweight title fight with Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Rose Namajunas had to deal with a plethora of trash talk and quite a bit of mental warfare from her Polish adversary. To the surprise of some, “Thug” Rose remained calm, cool, and collected. In fact, she feels as if her ability […]
In the lead-up to her UFC 217 strawweight title fight with Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Rose Namajunas had to deal with a plethora of trash talk and quite a bit of mental warfare from her Polish adversary.
To the surprise of some, “Thug” Rose remained calm, cool, and collected. In fact, she feels as if her ability to do so allowed her to beat Jedrzejczyk at ‘her own game’:
“This was a fight of mental warfare,” Namajunas said on today’s edition of The MMA Hour. “I beat her at her own game. I think each time that I wasn’t giving her nothing, she needs that. She needs somebody to fire back. I just wasn’t gonna do it and I just stuck with it. It definitely took a lot of restraint on my end, it took a lot of control. It took a lot out of me to do it. But I knew that’s what I had to do. I knew that’s the way to beat her is to shut her mental game down.”
It was clear that Jedrzejczyk was the more intense of the two prior to the bout, and she even appeared to be embracing the heel role, or the role of a villain so to say. In the end, however, Namajunas stunned the mixed martial arts community, stopping Jedrzejczyk in the first round of their title bout.
Speaking on the fight, Namajunas said that the ‘good prevailed for once’:
“It felt like good prevailed for once,” Namajunas said. “I feel like we’ve been in kind of a dark time these past few years and there’s always gonna be good and bad. We need the villain sometimes. It makes for an interesting story. I think people can relate. They love the Rocky story, they love the underdog. That’s what happened.”
Given how successful Jedrzejczyk’s title run was prior to UFC 217, a rematch between Namajunas and the ex-champion is certainly a possibility.
Who would you like to see “Thug” Rose make the first defense of her newly acquired title against?
After losing her women’s strawweight title by brutal knockout at UFC 217, former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk vows she will come back stronger than ever. Jedrzejczyk succumbed to a brutal barrage first-round punches to Rose Namajunas on Saturday night after being the most dominant female champion since Ronda Rousey. Many considered her to be one of if […]
After losing her women’s strawweight title by brutal knockout at UFC 217, former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk vows she will come back stronger than ever.
Jedrzejczyk succumbed to a brutal barrage first-round punches to Rose Namajunas on Saturday night after being the most dominant female champion since Ronda Rousey. Many considered her to be one of if not the best champion on the UFC roster prior to her loss to Namajunas.
The former champ took to Instagram to express her desire to return to the cage as quickly as possible:
A post shared by Joanna Jedrzejczyk (@joannajedrzejczyk) on
Jedrzejczyk had taken the belt from Carla Esparza at UFC 185 and had a firm grasp over the division ever since. But in one of those crazy MMA moments, three UFC belts changed hands at UFC 217, and the Polish national was one of those champions who lost on Saturday.
The knockout loss was her first professional defeat in mixed martial arts, as the former champion was dropped twice before the referee stopped the fight three minutes into the first round in a massive upset victory for Namajunas.
Do you expect Jedrzejczyk to regain her belt? Or will this loss have larger psychological implications for the former champ?
Mixed martial arts is known for many things.
| Patrz? z optymizmem w przysz?o??. Wiem, ?e wróc? silniejsza ni? kiedykolwiek i szybciej ni? si? tego spodziewacie?
@ericcoleman1 
#thestrawweightqueen #joannajedrzejczyk #joannachampion #willbeback #soon