“Carla’s for sure going to be the most dangerous opponent,” Rose Namajunas sights a rematch with Carla Esparza after defending the title at UFC 268

The two times UFC women’s strawweight champion, Rose Namajunas defended her in a highly anticipated rematch against the former UFC women’s strawweight champion, Zhang Weili at the co-main event of UFC 268. Namajunas put on clinical performance and defended her title against one of the biggest threats in the division.

Now, Rose Namajunas has her eyes set on the first UFC women’s strawweight champion, Carla Esparza to avenge the loss that Esparza gave her 7 years ago. ‘Cookie Monster’ defeated Namajunas in the finale of The Ultimate Fighter: A champion will be crowned and win the inaugural UFC women’s strawweight title.

Esparza is now on a five-fight winning streak in the division and she is the front runner for the next title shot. Talking about the rematch with Carla Esparza, in her latest interview with Ariel Helwani for MMA Hour, Rose Namajunas says,

“I don’t see anything else that makes sense,” Despite Esparza being the strongest contender for the title shot, the UFC president Dana White thinks she isn’t the first in the link. Talking about Carla Esparza’s title shot in the post-fight press conference of UFC 268, White says,

“We have an option, you don’t sit around and wait for fights, it’s a really bad idea.” {H/t MMA Fighting}

Rose Namajunas believes this timeline is perfect for her rematch against Carla Esparza

Esparza lost her last fight against Tatiana Suarez on UFC 228 and since then she has put on a five-fight winning streak with her latest win coming against Yan Xiaonan on UFC Fight Night: Font vs Garbrandt. Due to her impressive winning streak, Rose Namajunas believes this timeline is perfect for their rematch.

Namajunas added, “I think she’s going to give it all she’s got, before I said Weili is for sure the most dangerous threat right now, just because of the tools that she possessed. Now, after that, Carla’s for sure going to be the most dangerous opponent right this second because of where she’s at, her last performance and all this stuff, and she’s going to be very motivated to try – she’s fought for a long time.”

“I would imagine that she’s going to be pretty motivated for this huge opportunity. So that is something that really excites me and interests me more now than it was before.” {H/t MMA Fighting}

Also Read: “Seven years later we are both still here at the top of it,” Carla Esparza congratulates Rose Namajunas after UFC 268.

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