An important woman’s strawweight fight between Rose Namajunas and Michelle Waterson has been scheduled to headline UFC On FOX 24 in Kansas City on April 15th.
A former finalist on The Ultimate Fighter Season 20, Namajunas is coming off a split decision loss in her title eliminator fight with Karolina Kowalkiewicz at UFC 201 in July of last year.
That snapped a three-fight winning streak for ‘Thug’, but she’s still ranked No.5 in the division and at 24 years of age there’s plenty of time for her to make her mark in the UFC.
As for Waterson, she moved to 2-0 in her UFC career with a swift win over Paige VanZant in the main event of UFC On FOX 22 in December, after having previously defeated Angela Magana.
The 31 year-old ‘Karate Hottie’ is now ranked No.7 in the 115lb division and has started to get a promotional push from the UFC brass, including being an in-studio analyst for the recent UFC On FOX 23 event and then getting her own media day last week.
It’s also notable that this will be the third time in five ‘UFC On FOX’ events that women have headlined the show, following on from UFC On FOX 20: Holm Vs Shevchenko and UFC On FOX 22: PVZ Vs Waterson, while Namajunas also co-main evented UFC On FOX 19 last year.