Dana White lauded “Thug” Rose Namajunas after suffering a nasty-looking black eye in her split-decision strawweight win against Jessica Andrade on Saturday.
White posted a photo of Lithuanian-American Namajunas (9-4) after her Fight of the Night with fellow former champion Andrade (20-8). Namajunas had not fought in over a year since losing to “Bate Estaca” Andrade via second-round slam in May 2019.
“Thug Rose Namajunas”, tweeted White, who has long been a fan of the 28-year-old.
Namajunas herself posted a video on her social media of fiancée and coach Pat Barry filming her in hospital post-fight.
“So would you say that was the greatest female fight ever?” former UFC heavyweight Berry asked while panning to Namajunas lying in a hospital bed.
“Probably not, sorry Weili [Zhang]. That was fight of the year. I take that back,” Namajunas replied with a laugh, referring to division champion Zhang’s five-round war with former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in March. Zhang’s win is widely considered to be the promotion’s fight of the year so far.
Namajunas has also beaten Polish Jedrzejczyk twice in 2017 and 2018 via second-round TKO and unanimous decision, respectively.
Namajunas, who withdrew from her previous fight with Andrade after experiencing two Covid-19-related deaths in the family, then reposted White’s photo of her black eye with the caption:
“Thank you to everyone who has ever helped me and made this possible! To my team, family [the] UFC, fans, fellow fighters ... and so many more! Thanks to Jessica Andrade for making me better much respect u hit like a truck! Thank u also Abu Dhabi. What a journey!”
