It appeared that the loss crushed Namajunas and the former champion may not compete again, but Namajunas has since found her passion to fight again.
“I’ll fight again,” Namajunas said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (via Nolan King of MMA Junkie). “And you know it’s kind of one of those things where you get a little emotional. But it’s like I lost the passion for martial arts and fighting – mainly for fighting. I found my passion again. I went back to Minnesota to see one of my former coaches from earlier on in my amateur career, Greg Nelson. He’s just like a huge inspiration for me.”
The person who defeated Namajunas for the gold in the aforementioned Andrade, has since lost the title to Weili Zhang at UFC Fight Night Shenzhen.
Namajunas also admits that the pressure of being the UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion did eventually weigh on her.
“I made it into everything I didn’t want it to be,” Namajunas said. “I didn’t want the belt to define me and all I did was make it define me. That was all that was on my mind every day. Even though it was not even in my own house. It just consumed my every thought. It turned into a shackle and chain rather than just loving fighting. Do I want to be the best? Of course. But I don’t need a belt to tell me that I’m the best. I already know. It was like, weird. It was all of my fears and all of the things I didn’t want to happen ended up happening by just fearing it so much.”
There is no word yet as to when Namajunas will return to action, but Namajunas did state that she would like to be back in action in early 2020.
