Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) women’s strawweight Rose Namajunas has her sights set on returning to the Octagon. The last time we saw “Thug Rose” compete, she fell short in a split decision loss to Karolina Kowalkiewicz. The “Polish Princess” went on to face Joanna Jedrzejczyk for the 115-pound championship at UFC 205 in New York City.
Namajunas has gone 3-1 in her last four bouts, and she has the itch to throw leather again. She appeared on MMAFighting.com‘s The MMA Hour and revealed when she’d like to return:
“I’m cool with February, I’m cool with March, either way. March sounds like a good time.”
After Michelle Waterson’s win over Paige VanZant last month, Namajunas said she would welcome a bout with “The Karate Hottie.” “Thug Rose” still believes that is a fight that should be made.
“I think it kind of makes the most sense. Every time there’s a strawweight fight, I always get messages, ‘oh you should fight Rose,’ or, ‘Rose should fight them,’ and it’s just like, it’s cool and everything. But there was a noticeable difference, the amount of people recommending I fight somebody, and then [the amount saying I should fight] Michelle. It was a crazy amount of responses.”
Calling out Waterson didn’t exactly yield the type of reaction Namajunas was expecting. While fans responded in droves, they were mostly positive about the proposed match-up. “Thug Rose” had anticipated a different vibe.
“So, that just makes the most sense. It would be the most exciting I think. She’s coming off of a hot win, and it’s just, she won in really fast fashion and she looks great and she’s marketable. I’m marketable. It makes sense. I’d love to fight anybody, really, at this point. I was hoping maybe I’d call her out and there’d be some type of backlash or some type of noise created out of it, but it’s just more of the fans going, ‘yeah, that’s a good idea.’ So it’s kind of like, either way.”
