Former UFC strawweight champion, “Thug” Rose Namajunas is enjoying a long layoff after she lost her title to Carla Esparza. Namajunas told MMAFighting that she always planned to take some time away from the Octagon after that fight, and is considering her options moving forward, including a switch to grappling, or a move up to the UFC flyweight division.
“Win or lose, going into the last fight, I knew I was going to take some time off. I knew I was going to at least take the summer off. I’ll say around September, I’ll know exactly what I’ll be doing. I have been training a little bit, but not super consistent. I did have this little shoulder issue that I’ve been trying to rehab, and there was this girl Isis [Verbeek] who just won her Invicta fight that came into town so I got to train with her a little bit, just some little stuff trying to stay active so I’m not on the couch completely.
Rose Namajunas Open to Flyweight Debut
The thing I do know for a fact — and I don’t know when exactly I might fight again — but I do know that I want to do a grappling match of some sort. I want to really rack up some experience in that department. Also, once I get my other things in order, my life stuff, I’ll be lifting lots of weights, and maybe put on a little more muscle, and just kind of see what happens from there.”
Namajunas, when asked if she’d consider a move up to 125 pounds, seemed open to the idea, but considered her friendship with the flyweight champ, Valentina Shevchenko. “I don’t know, you can do the math.
I really don’t know, like I said, just one step at a time. The UFC has given me some offers for things and I just need the time to just not think about fighting at all, and then in the fall I’ll kind of lay out everything to see what makes sense […]
I love Valentina. In my opinion, and I always forget that Amanda Nunes is the women’s GOAT of MMA, but Valentina, if she keeps doing what she’s doing, you could make that case [for her] as well. I do consider myself to be Valentina’s friend, so in order for me to do that, we would have to be set up, not for life, but it would have to be for a very good reason for me to even want to step to her.”
How do you think “Thug” Rose will fare at 125 pounds? Let us know in the comments.
