Rose Namajunas had a famously awful fight against Carla Esparza at UFC 274 and everyone has been giving their take on the bout. Flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko was the latest to give her take on the poor showing.
Valentina Shevchenko was recently on The MMA Hour and was puzzled by the showing from Rose Namajunas. The UFC flyweight champion believes she's a better fighter than Carla Esparza and should have gotten things done.
“It’s hard to say exactly what went wrong in that fight. I feel that Rose, she kind of has everything better compared to Carla, and she just didn’t use much. And she could wrestle her easily… She just didn’t use her skills. I don’t know, it sometimes happens with fighters, they kind of, one day before feel so good, and the day of the fight they’re kind of like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t wanna fight.’
“You know what can help? I think, if Carla was more aggressive and explosive, and Rose received a great punch, she would have woke up and would start to fight… Rose didn’t activate… She was not herself.”
“It can happen with everyone, but every time I rely on my corner. If sometimes it happens, they would not just say, ‘Okay Valentina, okay, just do that,’ no. Pavel (Fedotov), Antonina (Shevchenko), they will yell at me and say what they think about me, what I am doing. Sometimes it’s necessary.”
“I feel all these microphones corners have, they put extra pressure on them to say everything too polite. Sometimes fighters don’t need polite, they need an extra push to wake up, to have adrenaline.
“You start to think, ‘If I continue to fight like that, I will lose my belt, I will lose the fight.’ Do I agree with that and continue to do nothing just to be comfortable? No, and this is what pushes me every time.”
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