A rematch between former strawweight champions Rose Namajunas and Jessica Andrade is believed to be in the works for UFC 249 in Brooklyn on April 18th.
The first time the two faced each other in May of last year, the titleholder at the time, Namajunas appeared to win the opening round, but then mid-way through the second Andrade slammed her to the mat and knocked her out in the process to seize the belt.
Since then Andrade has gone on to lose the belt by first round TKO against Weili Zhang in August of that year.
Meanwhile, Namajunas appeared to be contemplating retirement after the fight, despite only being 26-years-old after admitting to having lost her passion for the sport, but six months later she revealed that she’d rediscovered her desire to keep competing.
Prior to her loss to Andrade, ‘Thug’ Rose had been on a three-fight winning streak, having defeated Michelle Waterson by submission to secure a title shot and then becoming the first person to beat long-time champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk to win the title, by TKO no less.
She then proved that wasn’t a fluke by decision in their immediate rematch.
As for Andrade, she too had been in great form at the time, having racked up wins over Claudia Gadelha, Tecia Torres and Karolina Kowalkiewicz on her way to the title.
Andrade vs. Namajunas 2 joins a UFC 249 card that will be headlined by a lightweight title clash between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson, while Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza drops back to middleweight to face Uriah Hall.
