Rose Namajunas is content moving on from her uninspiring showing in the rematch with Carla Esparza.
Former two-time UFC women’s strawweight champion Namajunas was last seen in action against the reigning 115-pound queen Carla Esparza in May at UFC 274. Namajunas and Esparza put in a lackluster performance that saw them face a lot of heat from the community. Esparza came out on top of their second outing by split decision and snapped Rose’s three-fight win streak.
Rose Namajunas says she’s at peace with her performance in Carla Esparza rematch
In a recent interview with Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie, Rose Namajunas opened up about her anticlimactic performance with Esparza.
“I definitely got what I needed out of that fight,” Namajunas said (transcribed by MMA Mania). “I know that for the fans it was terrible (laughs). I definitely pride myself on being a very exciting fighter and I’ve always had exciting fights. But I realized that being a mixed martial artist, I am an artist and you don’t always have Mona Lisas, right? Sometimes you just have splotches and abstract art pieces.”
“Going forward, I feel pretty at peace with it,” she continued. “I mean, definitely being a martial artist and a competitor, that definitely has a little fire inside. I can still be a little salty sometimes when I think about it (laughs). But I’ve been through this before, I’ve been here and I know that that’s just what I needed. So, I’m fully grateful for everything.”
Namajunas confessed she wanted a dominant win
Although Rose got what she needed from the fight, she admitted she would have preferred a dominant win.
“So, as much as it might have sucked for the fans, for myself, I got the bare minimum I needed out of whatever personal things that I was looking for, but yeah, I would have liked to obviously won and win in devastating, dominant fashion.”
Rose Namajunas intends to stay on the sidelines for a while before returning back inside the octagon.
