Rose Namajunas Targets Rematch With Carla Esparza Following UFC 268: “I Would Love To Fight Carla”

UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas is eyeing a rematch with former champ Carla Esparza, following her split-decision victory over Weili Zhang in their rematch at UFC 268.

Namajunas spoke with the media after the win over Zhang on Saturday night and gave her thoughts on her performance while praising the improvements Zhang has made between now and their first meeting back at UFC 261.

“I was pretty convinced going into the fifth round that I had won it. It was pretty close in my mind for the rest of the fight, but going into the fifth, because it was such a dominant round for me, I felt as though I won it,” Namajunas said (h/t Sherdog). “I could’ve kept going even more. When they read her name off on the scorecards I was like, ‘Wait, is it going to be her, then me, then her?’ Judges, you never know what they’re going to see and it was a close fight. So I was ready for whatever. I think Weili did improve. Her distance management was really good. I was expecting that. It wasn’t a surprise in the improvements she made.”

She continued on to say she thinks the next logical step for her would be to rematch Esparza. The two met back in December 2014 at The Ultimate Fighter 20 Finale where Esparza won via a third-round submission due to a rear-naked choke to become the promotion’s inaugural women’s strawweight champion.

“She was on my mind before going into this one,” Namajunas said. “That seems sort of like the logical step, but I’ve got to see what the UFC is thinking I guess. But yeah, I would love to fight Carla.”

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