Rose Namajunas pulled off the biggest win of her career on Saturday at UFC 217. Yet despite the big upset of an established, popular champion, she doesn’t expect to be seeing Joanna Jedrzejczyk any time soon.
While former champ Jedrzejczyk is looking for an instant rematch after losing her belt at UFC 217 in New York over the weekend, the new strawweight Queen doesn’t expect to see her any time soon. Speaking to Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, Namajunas, basking in the glow of her big win, downplayed the possibility. Instant rematches are always a bone of contention in the MMA world. Given Jedrzejczyk’s dominance prior to meeting “Thug” Rose, however, a case could be made.
When asked whether she expected to face Joanna next, though, Rose answered in the negative. But still hedged her bets. “Probably not. I don’t think so. I don’t know how that could — anything’s possible, right?”
As Namajunas sees it, the circumstances of the finish simply don’t necessitate an instant rematch. “I mean, a first round knockout, and she tapped due to strikes. Even though she was still stumbling afterwards, there was still part of her that tapped. Not a fluke.”
So what would be the new champ’s “perfect scenario” for her first title defense? Who would she want to face? Namajunas hasn’t even gotten to that point.
“I thought about the idea of the rest of the division, and I wondered who was gonna call me out,” she said, “but I haven’t really thought about who I want to fight yet.” What has she been thinking about? “All I’ve been thinking about — the next step obviously is to decompress a little and this and that blah blah blah and have a little fun, see the rest of my friends and family — is just making sure our team is tight and solid.”
Don’t expect her back too soon, in other words. That said, a number of big cards have been announced for the first quarter of 2018, so time will tell.
