Rose lost a lot of credibility in her last fight where she lost her title to Carla Esparza. I remember this fight being something that everyone was looking forward to and at the time Rose was one of the most popular fighters in the entirety of the UFC. Her mild-mannered nature and ability to get the job done appealed to almost everyone and it seemed like everyone was on her side in all of her fights. That was until both her and Esparza put on the biggest snooze-fest that I have ever seen in the Octagon. In 5 rounds almost nothing happened and the crowd turned on both fighters with boos that got so loud that they had to adjust the audio for the PPV audience watching around the world.
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See how they are almost hitting one another in this above picture? Well that was basically the entire fight. It was a ton of dancing around the ring, feigning jabs and then swinging nowhere near one another's face with a leg kick mixed in every now and then. I don't recall where I was when it was going on but I know that even where we were people were booing as if they could hear as hundreds of miles away.
I don't even know how the judges were able to score that fight because honestly, nothing happened, nobody took any damage and for the most part it was a 25 minutes dancing contest. Everyone was pissed about this including Dana White who didn't mince words about how it was not a fight and neither one of them deserved to be the champion. It's hard to believe that this event took place over a year ago and Rose hasn't fought since that day.
I think that things could have been OK for Rose if she had just apologized to the fans and to the UFC roster for her poor performance but instead of doing that, where people likely would have forgiven the soft-spoken Rose, she and her team doubled down and suggested the fans are idiots that don't understand the strategy of MMA.
This obviously didn't go down well with fans and Namajunas went from being one of the most liked fighters in the sport to one of the most hated virtually overnight. There hasn't been any demand to see her fight again and I think that is a big part of the reason why she just kind of disappeared for over a year. She also decided to leave the strawweight division entirely and has moved to 125 lbs in the Flyweight division which she claims is her "new home."
She of course is getting a sweetheart deal and gets to fight a top-3 fighter in Manon Fiorot and this actually could end up being a good fight because Fiorot has never lost in UFC and has only lost 1 professional fight ever back in 2018 in a promotion called "Cage Warriors" and yes, that is a real thing - or at least was at some point.
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I don't really know how to call this one because Fiorot hasn't been the most exciting fighter with her 3 most recent fights going to distance and she has won by decision. I suppose a victory, even by decision over Jennifer Maia and Katlyn Chookagian is a pretty big deal since both of them have decent records and are both in the top-10 in Flyweight.
The pressure lies on Rose though and I know that she is aware of the fact that despite changing weight classes a lot is expected of her in this one if she is going to win the fans over. The event is taking place in France, and Fiorot is French, so I always kind of wonder when these things happen if Dana White is actually setting Rose up to fail.
I'm sure that Rose is going to come out there with a much better gameplan that just dancing around and never moving in for the kill though, if she were to do that again I think the fans would turn on her forever.
It was kind of nice to hear her finally admit at a Fight Night media day that "That was definitely one of the most boring fights ever" referring to her last appearance where she lost the belt.
At the moment Fiorot is a near -200 favorite in the fight, but a lot can change between now and "go time."
I am hopeful that Rose and Manon can make a fight of it because if we are depending on Ciryl Gane to make this card exciting, I think we are in trouble. I feel as though Gane is one of the most consistently boring fighters the UFC has ever known and even though he is facing a much weaker opponent in Moldova's Serghei Spivac, ever Gane fight has the opportunity to be a "dancing contest."
Thankfully this is just a Fight Night and not a PPV and I think Dana White and the top brass at UFC know that if they had tried to make this a PPV, that almost no one would buy it. Tune in this weekend if want to take a chance on this not being absolutely terrible. I think there is a better-than-average chance that it could seriously suck though. Come on Rose! Redeem yourself!