Could title shot be next for Rose Namajunas after rematch win over Jessica Andrade?

Rose Namajunas said in the build-up to her rematch with Jessica Andrade that she wasn’t in the right head space during their first fight.

Saturday at UFC 251, Namajunas (9-4 MMA, 7-3 UFC) appeared to be much more excited about being in a fist fight, and in a “Fight of the Night” performance eked out a split decision win over Andrade (20-8 MMA, 11-6 UFC) at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.

Namajunas won the women’s strawweight title with a TKO of then-dominant champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in November 2017 and defended the belt in a rematch with her five months later. But after 13 months on the sidelines, she was knocked out by a vicious Andrade slam onto her head at UFC 237 in May 2019. She hadn’t fought since.

In the meantime, Andrade lost the title to current champ Zhang Weili, which set up a rematch between Namajunas and Andrade that many thought to be a title eliminator – putting Namajunas in the driver’s seat for a potential title shot.

After the fight, she sported a busted-up nose and left eye and was transported to a local hospital without meeting with the media. But she told Jon Anik on the pay-per-view broadcast that if a title shot is next, she’d like to do it this calendar year.

“I was hoping to get in there pretty soon – before the end of the year,” Namajunas said. “But we’ll see how my nose is doing and we’ll go from there.”

Namajunas put a lot of stock in having a better frame of mind during her training camp this time, and in the downtime since her loss to Andrade.

The time off between her second win over Jedrzejczyk and loss to Andrade was, at the time, her longest stretch without a pro fight. Then she eclipsed that this time around with a 14-month layoff – though it likely would have been shorter if not for the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Namajunas said she’s having fun again, and that could be of big importance for her in a quest to get back to a title shot.

“It was fun (against Andrade),” she said. “I was just in the right state of mind thats everything. Early on in the fight, it was great. And I think later she turned on the desperation button and really started unloading. She caught me a couple times, obviously, but I just stayed strong.

“The first part (of rebounding) is just getting right with God – that’s No. 1. And then from there, the rest just kind of – technically, physically, loving what I do again, that was everything.”