Rose Namajunas isn’t looking to surpass Manon Fiorot for a flyweight title shot.
Namajunas moved up to flyweight after losing her strawweight title to Carla Esparza via split decision in 2022. “Thug” suffered a hard-fought unanimous decision loss against Fiorot in her flyweight debut the following year. Namajunas has since racked up consecutive decision victories over Amanda Ribas and Tracy Cortez, earning relevance in title conversations.
Namajunas is scheduled to fight top contender Erin Blanchfield in the co-main event at UFC Edmonton at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. A win would likely make Namajunas a potential contender for the next gold bid at 125 pounds against Valentina Shevchenko. While Shevchenko is a training partner of Namajunas, “Thug” wouldn’t mind getting paid for what they would do in training anyway.
“That would be my dream matchup,” Namajunas told ESPN. “Obviously I’m a huge admirer of [Shevchenko]. Just as a martial artist, I think she’s like the best martial artist in the womens’ and just in general… I had this goal of being a two-division champion when I first started. And here we are, so it’s sort of like my last goal… I really do admire her a lot and respect her a lot. So that would be kind of weird. But we also train together. So it would be like, at least we’re getting paid for doing what we’re doing.”
However, Fiorot is currently undefeated in seven UFC outings, including victories over both Namajunas and Blanchfield. Aside from a spectacular finish over Blanchfield, Namajunas doesn’t see herself leapfrogging Fiorot for the next flyweight title shot.
“I think after Manon [Fiorot], yes,” Namajunas said. “And I think [if] in spectacular fashion, then of course. I have seen a bunch of headlines of me saying that I wanna skip … I never said that. I think she deserves it next but I would like to be next after that for sure.”
