PARIS – [autotag]Rose Namajunas[/autotag]’ days at 115 pounds appear to be behind her.
Namajunas (11-5 MMA, 9-4 UFC), a two-time strawweight champion, will make her flyweight debut against top contender Manon Fiorot (10-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 226 co-main event at Accor Arena in Paris. The event streams on ESPN+.
Namajunas says after physically transforming herself to the flyweight frame, dropping back down won’t be easy.
“I can’t see myself going back down again,” Namajunas said during Wednesday’s UFC Fight Night 226 media day. “Now I’m kind of just naturally walking around at 135, or waking up at 135. To go all the way down to 115 would be tough.”
Namajunas’ move up was not a spur-of-the-moment decision. “Thug Rose” says she’s always had aspirations of becoming a two-division champion.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” Namajunas said. “(I) originally made a bunch of goals for my career early on when I was younger. Being a two-division champ was on the end of the list – but it was there, and here we are. I think I’m known for surprising people. It’s just kind of my style.”
Namajunas is coming off a lackluster title loss to Carla Esparza in May 2022. Her cuts down to strawweight still were doable, but she started to feel them impact her negatively.
“I still didn’t really have too much trouble making weight,” Namajunas said. “It was tough, but I don’t think in comparison was as bad as most fighters deal with. But I still never liked that. Taking punches, I think it takes more than 24 hours to rehydrate your brain after cutting that much water.
“To take punches like that (is not good), and then your kidneys and everything … I just started getting bigger naturally, and on top of that, once I decided to move up, I lifted more weights. I ate a little bit more. I actually started eating breakfast again – stopped fasting so much.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 226.
