Be Afraid

Ice baths won’t be the only thing to make “Thug’s” lower half go numb, especially after seeing “red.”

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) strawweight champion Zhang Weili will battle former 115-pound titleholder Rose Namajunas at the upcoming UFC 261 pay-per-view (PPV) event, scheduled for this Sat. night (April 24, 2021) inside VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.

Weili (21-1) captured the strawweight strap by smashing Jessica Andrade at UFC Shenzhen back in summer 2019, then defended her title with a “Fight of the Year” performance opposite Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248. Neither performance, however, was good enough to impress flyweight queen Valentina Shevchenko.

Namajunas (9-4), meanwhile, was knocked out by the aforementioned Andrade at UFC 237 in May 2019, then avenged her loss to “Bate Estaca” at UFC 251 roughly a year later. “Thug” initially turned down a title fight against Weili because her “head wasn’t right,” prompting Namajunas to hire a mental coach before moving forward.

Hopefully his advice was “check the leg kick.”

UFC 261 will be headlined by the welterweight rematch between reigning 170-pound champion Kamaru Usman and veteran bruiser Jorge Masvidal. Elsewhere on the card, Andrade attempts to win her second UFC title against Shevchenko.

For the finalized UFC 261 fight card and line up click here.