Most of them hide their emotions with stoic looks, and never admit their vulnerabilities. Fighters are a different breed, and there’s something inside of them that that allows them to step into a ring or a cage and accept all the risks that entails, which most of us could never take. It would be terrible, though, if that’s the last memory fans have of her, slammed to the canvas and knocked cold. Getting knocked out actually wasn’t that bad.” “I’ve tried to use this opportunity and this platform to maybe inspire other people who are fearing something,” she said. She wants to make a difference in the lives of people who were struggling, just like she was struggling when her father walked out on the family oh so many years ago and she went through almost unimaginable problems as a child. She didn’t just want to sell T-shirts and rack up big checks. She’s well aware of the bully pulpit that being a UFC champion gives her, and she wants to use that wisely. “A big motivation for me is to not waste my potential and stuff like that,” she said.Īs she spoke, she revealed herself. Her paradox is that she’s so damn good at fighting that it seems almost like a waste to give up on it. (Getty Images)Īs she made that long, slow walk to the Octagon to face Andrade, her facial expression suggested she wanted to be anywhere but where she was. Rose Namajunas slowly made her way into the cage on Saturday. She loves to garden and play the piano and has a million other interests, none of which involves punching someone in the face or slamming them on their head. She fights not because she loves it like so many others do, but almost because she feels an obligation to use the talents she discovered she had at a young age. “So that’s cool,” she added, cracking a wry grin. The money she earned from the bout will allow her to pay her home off, she said. She said her neck was fine and that the only physical problem she had from the fight was a sore leg. What was looking like the best night of her professional life turned into a nightmare in a nanosecond. This time, though, she fought off the Kimura attempt so that when she slammed Namajunas, the force of the champion’s collision with the mat knocked her out instantly. Namajunas never looked better and seemed about to cruise to yet another successful title defense.Īnd then, in an instant, it was all over and Andrade was draping the strawweight belt over the shoulder of coach Gilliard Parana while physicians attended to a flattened Namajunas.Īs she’d done in the first, Andrade tried to slam Namajunas. Namajunas controlled the distance and the angles expertly, and used a massive speed and quickness advantage adeptly.Įven when Andrade used her prodigious strength to lift Namajunas above her head, Namajunas caught Andrade in a Kimura and prevented a fierce slam. She mixed in the right hand and snapped Andrade’s head back with it several times. She established her jab early, landing it with authority and cutting Andrade with one of the first ones she landed. No fighter has ever achieved perfection in a round, but Namajunas came close to it in the first round. The script couldn’t have played out more perfectly for her in the first seven minutes or so of the bout. “We’ll see.” That came only a few seconds after she’d said, “We’ll see if I’m still interested in this.”īy this, she meant fighting another human being in a cage, and while she’s good at it, it’s not hard to understand why she’s thinking she had enough. “I just want to do something else in my life right now,” she said at the postfight news conference.Īsked if she was announcing her retirement, she backed off. She smiled and hemmed and hawed and wouldn’t make official her retirement, but she kept saying everything but that she was done. The scars she suffered were more psychological that came from a tumultuous life and the incident on the bus. She suffered no physical injuries and didn’t have a mark on her face. On Saturday, after she was knocked out in the second round by a slam from Jessica Andrade that would have made Hulk Hogan proud, Namajunas suggested she may be done fighting.
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