Despite losing the fight, and the UFC strawweight title, at UFC 274 last weekend, Rose Namajunas insisted on The MMA Hour that she “got what she wanted” out of the fight. Namajunas vs Esparza 2 was a largely uneventful five-round affair, with neither fighter willing to fully commit to the bout. It was enough to bring the assembled UFC fans in the arena to boos mid-fight. Rose, however, doesn’t see it as as a totally unmitigated disaster.
“Just in a general sense, I will say it just basically had to do with, I have my three goals. My base-level goal is come out unscathed, like happy, healthy and safe. And then number two was obviously win the fight. And then ultimately [number three] was not only win, but dominate and set myself apart from the rest of the division. That’s why I talked about it in all my interviews leading up to it.
Rose Namajunas “Got What She Wanted” From UFC 274 Loss
I literally said I’ll take what I can get though, because ultimately, for this fight, all it matters is that I’m happy, healthy, and safe, because of just the patterns in which my career’s gone and all that stuff.
That’s the main thing. And so, as far as all the things I wanted to get out of this, I got base-level everything that I wanted, as far as, I got what I wanted out of it. And it’s crazy — it might sound crazy to people, because I think they look at Carla as just Carla, you know? And it’s like, no, there were many moments to get in a lot of danger.”
Carla Esparza’s wrestling was the biggest danger for Rose, whose own counterstriking could, on another night, have finished an overzealous opponent. As it was, neither fighter did enough to truly earn either a win or a loss.
“I didn’t feel like I won, but I definitely didn’t feel like Carla won and I definitely didn’t feel like I lost.
It is kind of weird because usually when fights go the distance for me, like throughout the fight I’m thinking about, ‘OK, what are the judges seeing?’ I don’t think I was really thinking about that in this fight. I was thinking about my goals of, I wanted Carla to know, one, I wasn’t going to do what her corner wanted me to do, because they kept wanting me to come out of my game plan, and then every time I’d step forward, they’d be like, ‘Oh, there’s her foot — OK, now she’s going to do the thing, because she’s going to crack because everybody’s booing.’ That’s what basically [Esparza’s coach] said in the corner.”
Do you think Rose had the right mentality for the fight, or should she have done more to earn the win? Let us know in the comments.
