Rose Namajunas has been on the receiving end of many negative comments from her fellow fighters after the awful fight at UFC 274. Her former opponent, Weili Zhang recently spoke out on the fight and gave her thoughts on the way the former champion fought.
Weili Zhang believes Rose Namajunas wanted to take the night off and try to win easily at UFC 274. It's not a strategy Zhang appreciates considering she thinks champions should fight hard in every title defense.
“I feel definitely Rose is (under) a lot of pressure when she steps into the octagon,” Weili told MMA Junkie and other reporters at a UFC 275 pre-fight news conference. “Definitely, she wanted to take care of her belt and didn’t want to fight hard (and) fight everything out, but wanted to fight more strategically and more easily against Carla. But as a champion or an MMA fighter, you shouldn’t think about that. In the fight you should (put) your everything into the octagon and fight your heart out, so I don’t think Rose should fight with an attitude like that.”
Weili Zhang is set to fight Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 275 and the winner is expected to fight Carla Esparza for the strawweight championship. Zhang sees the fight as a great opportunity if she can get the win on Saturday.
“I feel really happy and excited if I can fight Carla,” Weili said. “I think the matchup with me and Carla will be very different… no matter striking or on the ground, we will fight a lot. It’s about bringing the exciting fights to the fans, so I’m really looking forward to it.”
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