UFC flyweight Rose Namajunas is in an interesting spot as she takes on former training partner Miranda Maverick at UFC Atlanta on Saturday night.
Namajunas (13-7) trained with Maverick, mostly in sparring, but still an interesting side not to the matchup.
“No second thoughts (on taking the fight) or anything. It’s something that I wasn’t like super surprised by just because, when I was matched up to fight Maycee (Barber) and she had pulled out last year, Miranda was one of the first people to kind of throw her name in the hat,” Namajunas told reporters on Wednesday.
“She was matched up to fight Tracy (Cortez) at the time. She was kind of upset that Tracy got that opportunity over her. We were training together for that fight. Mainly just like sparring not like all the other stuff.”
Even with the bit of history they have both in and out of the training room the fight isn’t personal for Namajunas. Being the former champ she knows how the fight game works.
“No, but I know that this is the fight business. She wants what I have, she wants my spot, and I got to just show her that she has to look for a different spot,” she said.
Looking ahead UFC strawweight champion Weili Zhang has been talking about moving up to 125 to challenge Valentina Shevchenko. With the history she has with Namajunas would “Thug Rose” entertain a third bout?
“For sure. At 115 we did that twice there. If she was able to (move up) then yeah that would be something that at 125 would make it a little different,” said Namajunas.
Watch the entire media day scrum with Rose Namajunas above. She takes on Miranda Maverick at UFC Atlanta on Saturday night.
