Rose Namajunas returned to high type at UFC 261, defeating odds on favourite Zhang Weili within the first spherical with an image excellent head kick that knocked out the Chinese language champ (watch the highlights here).
Now Rose has the ladies’s strawweight title — and the excellence of being the primary girl to ever win a UFC title again after shedding it. Issues are good, and Rose Namajunas was clearly feeling good following the win.
“I’ve been seeing the left excessive kick in my head simply because I watched her battle with Joanna and he or she’s type of open for that,” Namajunas defined to Megan Olivi. “However that wasn’t the way in which that I seen the end within the battle. I seen this battle going many various methods, some dangerous, some good. And I simply needed to have religion.”
“I simply needed to get my vary and simply needed to get affected person. She was feeling assured cuz she was touching me with the within low kick and the jab. Her jab was a pleasant lil jab she caught in there. However I believe it simply helped me get my vary and I simply managed my respiration and the whole lot. I used to be ready to go for all 25 minutes so I simply stayed calm.”
As for Zhang’s response to the loss — she spent the whole time following the end insisting she hadn’t been knocked unconscious — Namajunas was fairly understanding.
“I wasn’t upset about that,” Rose stated. “I used to be extra upset for her as a result of I do know she labored actually exhausting and he or she’s very decided. And I do know that I needed to be simply as decided to take this from her. So it actually sucked, not that it was a nasty stoppage, simply that she was actually upset that the whole lot type of turned the wrong way up in that second.”
As for what’s subsequent, Namajunas appeared fairly open to quite a lot of choices, from rematches with Zhang Weili or Joanna Jedrzejczyk to combating the winner of Yan Xioanan vs. Carla Esparza. However the ball is certainly in her court docket.
“I might most likely do no matter I would like proper now,” she stated on the post-fight press convention with a smile. “It’s only a matter of what appears interesting to me within the second. So I believe I simply type of should let issues accept a bit.”
“I wish to get again in there and keep just a little extra energetic. I simply needed to get some issues mentally in a row, and bodily cuz I had the nostril surgical procedure. However you realize, hopefully we’ll see. We gotta return to the drafting board and do some various things. I wish to do some type of environmentalist undertaking, so I’m going to plan it out however hopefully sooner relatively than later!”
“I do know there are some issues on the horizon, like in Could an Earthship construct that I used to be taking part in,” she stated. “However we’ll see what the very best route of motion is transferring ahead.”
Earthships are a sort of sustainable housing constructed utilizing recycled supplies and Namajunas has been concerned in constructing a number of, most notably throughout a visit to Indonesia in 2016 that was documented via YouTube diaries.
“I wish to produce fruit with this seed that I’ve been given,” she stated. “I simply wish to give again and I believe that’s going to be the primary focus proper now.”