On the surface, Rose Namajunas’ life is pretty great. She’s one of the most popular female fighters in MMA history, a former two-time UFC strawweight champion, and was a finalist on “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show.
Those are accolades most athletes could only dream of, but the story behind that story is one of emotional devastation, abuse and heartbreak. Namajunas has been able to spin all those hardships into a driving force, though, and turned her story into one of perseverance, positivity and inspiration.
All those things are tied together in “Thug Rose: Mixed Martial Artist,” a new 90-minute documentary film that premiers Nov. 9 on UFC Fight Pass. It’s directed and produced by Marius Markevicius, who started following Namajunas’ life closely in 2017 and crafted a format to best tell her tale to the world.
“Marius and I connected really well when I first won the belt (from Joanna Jedrzejczyk) back in 2017,” Namajunas told MMA Junkie ahead of the film’s upcoming release. “It was kind of a leap of faith in his part in investing the time and interviewing me, and we kind of persisted over the past few years to get the financing and putting the pieces together.”
Namajunas and Markevicius are both of Lithuanian descent, and they instantly bonded while starting work on this project. It required a lot of sacrifice, vulnerability and dedication to create. Although Namajunas has revealed pieces of her past through the years in the spotlight as an elite fighter, the documentary offers more depth than ever before.
“She’s talked about a lot in her career, but the goal was to go one level deeper and let Rose tell her story in one unified and cohesive place,” Markevicius said. “And have it in her own words instead of all over the place by a whole bunch of other people. That was kind of a mission.”
It’s one thing for Namajunas to tell her story, which includes overcoming physical abuse, the death of her father at 16 and the challenges of thriving in a largely male-dominated sport. The film goes beyond her own words, however, and offers insight from family members, coaches, teammates, and others who have been by her side.
“That was definitely a very difficult thing,” Namajunas said. “I definitely learn how much my family loves me, but it’s a healing process for all of us, because we’ve been through a lot. Just to see that come out on film, I don’t know. It’s hard to describe.”
Although the film shines a light on the difficulties of Namajunas’ life, it also presents how she’s internalized those moments and spun them into something good. Many people have crumbled after enduring similar hardship to Namajunas, but she said a key motivation in creating the film was to show that it doesn’t have to be that way.
“Being able to forgive others or yourself and acknowledge that we’re not perfect, and those are just some important elements,” Namajunas said. “Being able to take such hard things and turn it into gold. … It doesn’t always have to be doom and gloom. That is a part – there’s the highs and lows. So I think capturing those low moments is what just makes the high moments even better.”
Namajunas (11-5 MMA, 9-4 UFC) quite literally did turn her path into gold by winning the UFC title on two occasions. But even when she made it to the top, it wasn’t always a fairytale. She just lost the 115-pound belt to Carla Esparza at UFC 274 in May in what was one of the most highly criticized title bouts in UFC history.
The fallout of that fight wasn’t easy for Namajunas, and the end of the film acknowledges that night. Her phycology isn’t damaged by the loss of the belt, though, and that fact only highlights one of the underlying narratives of the film.
“Hopefully a takeaway from the film is you realize, win or lose, having the belt or not having the belt is actually a small thing in Rose’s journey,” Markevicius said. “We talked a lot about what talking about those things can do for other people in terms of sending a positive message and the social impact this film could have in terms of helping people who have been through abuse, who have been through different struggles. I think Rose’s story is very inspirational, so we hope it does help people out there.”
Rose Namajunas confronts troubling past in ‘Thug Rose’ documentary film on UFC Fight Pass
