Rose Namajunas Biography

Rose Namajunas (full name: Rose Gertrude Namajunas) popularly known as ‘Thug Rose’, is an American mixed martial artist who is signed to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

At UFC, she competes in the women’s strawweight division and is the current champion. She is number 15 in the UFC’s official pound for pound rankings as of November 7, 2018.

Rose Namajunas Age

Namajunas was born on 29 June 1992 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. She is 26 years old as of 2018.

Rose Namajunas Family

Rose Namajunas Father

The UFC strawweight champion was born to Lithuanian immigrants in a tough neighborhood in Milwaukee. She often witnessed violence and has spoken about being sexually abused. Her father Jolita Frank, had schizophrenia and passed on when she was 16 years old.

The Milwaukee native has been nicknamed “Thug” Rose since her young days. Her friends growing up called her that because she always had an intimidating scowl on her face. Given the situation in her neighborhood, Namajunas’s scowl was there to ward off trouble due to her small size.

Her troubles growing up led her to join the world of combat sports to help her deal with the troubles in her life. She even credits fighting with helping her cope with life. She says that the difficulties have not in any way made her a great fighter but fighting her way through each one of them has.

At the age of 9, she had a black belt in taekwondo and progressed to karate at the age of 11. As a senior in high school, she trained in kickboxing and mixed martial arts at the Roufusport MMA Academy. In her senior year she was a wrestler at the Milwaukee High School of the Arts.

Rose Namajunas Boyfriend

Namajunas is engaged to kickboxer and former MMA artist, Pat Barry. Barry is also her trainer and is known for his low kicks during his MMA days when he competed in the heavyweight division.

Rose Namajunas Ultimate Fighter | UFC

Namajunas was signed by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) on December 11, 2013, along with 10 other strawweight fighters to compete on season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter, which would crown the first-ever UFC strawweight champion. She was the fourth pick by coach Gilbert Melendez.

In the preliminary round of the tournament, she defeated Alex Chambers by submission due to a rear-naked choke. In the quarter-finals, she won the fight via kimura in the second round against Joanne Calderwood.

In the semi-finals, she again won the fight via kimura when she faced Randa Markos.

Carla Esparza vs Rose Namajunas

On December 12, 2014, at The Ultimate Fighter: A Champion Will Be Crowned Finale, Namajunas faced Carla Esparza for the vacant UFC Strawweight Championship. She lost the fight as she was submitted via rear-naked choke in the third round.

Despite having lost in the finale, Namajunas was awarded two season $25,000 bonus awards for Performance of the Season and Fight of the Season for her bout with Joanne Calderwood.

Namajunas vs Nina Ansaroff

On May 23, 2015 at UFC 187, Namajunas was expected to face Nina Ansaroff. Before the fight, Ansaroff missed weight by 4 pounds and was fined 20 percent of her fight purse. Later, a couple of hours before the fights started, the bout was scrapped due to Ansaroff being ill and having to pull out.

Even though the fight couldn’t take place, Namajunas was paid her full fight purse (show- and win money).

Namajunas vs Angela Hill

On October 3, 2015 at UFC 192She faced Angela Hill, she won the fight by technical submission due to a standing rear-naked choke in the first round.

Rose Namajunas vs Paige Vanzant

On December 10, 2015 at UFC Fight Night 80, Namajunas fought Paige VanZant replacing an injured Joanne Calderwood. Throughout the fight, she dominated VanZant, out-striking her consistently and landing eight takedowns.

She also attempted three submissions, two arm bars and a rear naked choke, before she won the fight half way through the fifth round via submission due to a rear naked choke. The win earned Namajunas her first Performance of the Night bonus award.

Rose Namajunas vs Tecia Torres

Namajunas faced the still undefeated Tecia Torres in a rematch on April 16, 2016 at UFC on Fox 19 and she won the fight via unanimous decision.

Karolina Kowalkiewicz vs Rose Namajunas

At UFC 201, on July 30, 2016, Namajunas fought Karolina Kowalkiewicz in a match regarded as a title eliminator. Namajunas was defeated by Kowalkiewicz via split decision. Due to their performance, both participants were awarded Fight of the Night.

Namajunas vs Michelle Waterson

On April 15, 2017 at UFC on Fox 24, Namajunas faced Michelle Waterson She dropped Waterson with a head kick, and won by submission due to a rear-naked choke in round two, marking the fifth submission finish in her career.

Namajunas vs Joanna Jędrzejczyk

At UFC 217 at Madison Square Garden in New York, Namajunas faced strawweight champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk on November 4, 2017. Namajunas upset the MMA world when she knocked Jędrzejczyk down, first behind the ear and then again with a left hand to her chin.

She won the fight by KO in first round to be crowned the new UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion. This win also earned her her second Performance of the Night bonus award. This fight was her first knockout victory in her professional career (2 TKO-wins as an amateur). Her victory was declared one of the biggest upsets in UFC history.

At the UFC 217 post-fight press conference, Rose Namajunas stated that she intended to use her champion status as a platform to spread awareness of mental illness. In the first defense of her title, Namajunas faced Jędrzejczyk in a rematch that took place on April 7, 2018 at UFC 223 and Namajunas won the fight by unanimous decision.

Rose Namajunas with Hair and without Hair

Rose shaved her hair in 2015 because it got in the way during her practice. She also explained that she thought it would be the perfect opportunity to give her a grittier, don’t-give-a-fuck look versus her prettier image.

Rose Namajunas Bikini

Rose Namajunas Facebook

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Rose Namajunas Instagram

Rose Namajunas being declared UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion

Rose Namajunas Interview

In an interview with Cage Potato, Rose goes into details of her life. From how she got the nickname ‘Thug’, to her relationship with Barry.

First of all, who gave you the nickname “Thug”?

Rose: My neighborhood friends. When I was little, I was the only white girl, I was smaller than everyone else, and for some reason I just acted harder than everybody else — just fearless, you know? So they kind of dubbed me that because of the intimidating scowl I always had on my face. That’s what gave me that name.

I’ve noticed that scowl before your fights, and even in your weigh-ins. Do you have to get yourself into that Thug-mode — is it a separate persona — or are you that intense all the time?

Rose: That’s just one aspect of my personality. I have a playful, fun-loving side, and I also have a very sensitive and emotional side to my personality. But it’s definitely one of the main things that most strangers will pick off of me from a first impression, that I really come off as this intimidating type of person. Like I said, it’s just one aspect of my personality, but I’m always practicing a staredown with strangers. Even going to the grocery store, I might mean-mug somebody just to see if I get a weird feeling from them. It’s practice. And I think that’s one thing that fighters don’t really practice that much, is their intimidation and their mind games, and the intimidating looks that you can give to people. It really can win or lose you the fight if you have that down. Mike Tyson was phenomenal at that game, of intimidating his opponents — he won the fight before it even started.

Has a stranger ever tried to fight you because you were looking at them funny in the grocery store?

Rose: Well, that’s the one risk you have you have to constantly take. Playing the staring game with strangers, you never know who you’re going to run into. I mean, you might run into me, you never know! It’s definitely a risk doing that with strangers, but you know, we take a risk going into the cage. So if you win that staredown with a stranger, then you know you’ve won. And if they flip on you and go crazy, then, you know…that sucks. [laughs]

Your second professional fight is just two days away. Between weight-cutting and travel, how difficult is fight week for you?

Rose: I don’t know if I would say the difficulty level is higher or lower. You know that it’s crunch time, and you know that there are a lot of things to do in one week. The physical stress is a lot less, but the mental stress is way more. You’re not banging up your body, you’re not breaking your body down to zero energy level, but all the interviews and media that you have to do takes a toll on you mentally, and so does the anticipation. You know that it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming, and it just increases towards the day of the fight.

In an interview last year with BabesofMMA, you mentioned that you’ve struggled with nerves before a fight. How badly does that still affect you, and what do you do to calm yourself down?

Rose: Well, here’s the thing — I think any fighter who says they don’t get nervous is either lying because they want to look tough, or they don’t really care about it and probably shouldn’t be doing it. If you’re not nervous before something, then you don’t care. I put everything into fighting, and for me to invest everything emotionally, physically, and spiritually into this increases my nerves because I want to do well. And also, you never know what’s going to happen. You know how good you are, and you want to focus on yourself, but no matter who you’re fighting — no matter what size they are, no matter what their record is — they’re always the scariest person at that time, and then afterwards it’s like, “Oh well, nevermind.”

I think another myth is that the more you do it, the more comfortable you get with it. But in each fight I’ve had, I get more and more nervous because the pressure keeps building and building, and it’s a new challenge every time. It never gets easier, and I think that’s just something you have to accept over time. But that’s why we do it. If there’s no build up to it, then it doesn’t make it exciting, and I think putting ourselves in dangerous situations makes our lives exciting.

I know you’ve been an athlete and martial artist most of your life. Was there a specific moment that inspired you to get into MMA?

Rose: One thing just led to another. My family has always been involved in sports. My grandfather was a professional wrestler and a champion in Lithuania for many years. I have a second cousin or aunt, or whatever you want to call it, she’s a professional basketball player, and all my family is involved with different things like art and music. Sports always played a major role in my life, but martial arts were always there since day one. I started going to Duke Roufus’s gym and I met Pat Barry, and Anthony Pettis was coming up at the time, Eric Schafer was in the UFC, and the UFC was growing and growing, and I realized that I could do something great with this and it didn’t just have to be a hobby for me.

Are you still training at The Academy in Minneapolis? Who are your main training partners?

Rose: I’ve been splitting up my training camp between Minnesota at the Academy, and Trevor Wittman’s gym at Grudge Training Center in Colorado. I train with Kaitlin Young a lot of the time. We have Mike Richman, who’s gonna have his Bellator fight against Frodo [Khasbulaev] this Thursday, and then we’ve got Jacob Volkmann who’s a phenomenal wrestler. We’ve got all these names coming out of the Academy that I train with, and obviously all the legends that came from there, like Sean Sherk and Dave Menne. Back in Colorado I train with Cat Zingano, and she’s a frickin’ beast. She’s taken me down a thousand million times, she’s a super stud wrestler, and that’s not even her number one strength. I mean, her striking is great too, she just comes forward fearlessly. And there’s a ton of other girls that I train with in Colorado; I normally don’t get that many females to train with. But on top of that, you know, Trevor Wittman is a great coach, and Greg Nelson and obviously Pat are my main coaches who really push me to the next level.

You had your pro debut in January at the last Invicta event. Tell me a little about the experience of being on an all-female card. Was it more comfortable for you, or did you prefer being one of the few female fighters at those King of the Cage events you used to compete on?

Rose: Invicta doesn’t ignore the fact that we’re females and we’re different. I mean, we need to actually do our hair and get it braided, and we need to take pregnancy tests, just the little things like that, they acknowledge it and pay attention. But they also treat us like queens. And it’s just a level of professionalism that they have. I’m really appreciative of everything they’ve given me.

Your opponent on Friday, Kathina Catron, is also relatively new in her career. How much do you know about her, and what are your thoughts on her?

Rose: I think she has more experience than I do, so she has that edge on me, but I’ve always been the less-experienced fighter in all of my fights. I’ve also been the smaller fighter in all of my fights — I’ve fought up a weight class in all my amatuer fights even though I was way smaller, and I still came out on top, so I think I have that advantage of being able to overcome the obstacles. [Catron] does have more finishes than I do, so I think she’s going to come out in the fight really gutsy and wild, and I think she won’t be afraid to take any risks.

Now, I believe that I’m better all around, standing and on the ground. I think that she’s a well-rounded fighter, and that can be good in some instances, but sometimes when you’re a well-rounded fighter you get too comfortable in just letting the fight go wherever it goes, and for me, that’s not what I want to do. I want to take the fight to where I want it to go. I want to make a game plan and take it to where she’s uncomfortable and finish it.

There hasn’t been any trash talk between you and Katrina leading up to this fight. Do you think you’d ever trash-talk another fighter to create buzz around yourself, or call a fighter out to get her attention? It seems to work for some people.

If it happens, it happens — it’s not going to be forced or planned. I’m not opposed to it. But if it turns into one of those things where, “Okay, I’m going to do this for attention or to get the media to bite into it,” then I’m not going to do it because I never want to do anything forced; I want to just go with the wind. I feel really comfortable for this fight. There are obstacles that I’ve had to overcome, but all and all, everything’s falling into place, and I’m not gonna create any type of bad blood that’s not there. I don’t really know [Catron], I don’t even think about her that much. I just know that she’s an opponent and I have to take care of business and do what I gotta do, and if we happen to talk afterwards that would be cool. We’ll probably run into each other before the weigh-ins or something, and it might be fun, we’ll see.

By the way, how did Pat Barry charm you into being his girlfriend?

Well, he’s kind of irresistible! I was going to the gym every day and keeping to myself, not really talking to anybody. But he has a knack for charisma, and he’s a very charming man. His smile…I don’t know what it was, but when he walked past me, I felt some type of surreal feeling that I can’t really explain in words. But I still kept to myself regardless of that feeling, and over time, he began to gain my trust and vice versa. He always tells the story about how we first met, and that’s when I punched him in the face, and he fell in love at first punch, I guess you could say. And it was the same with me; when I first saw him, I knew something was special about him.