On Saturday at UFC 217 Rose Namajunas won the UFC women’s Strawweight title from Joanna Jedrejczyk in a spectacular first round knockout.

The fight buildup was filled with Jedrzejczyk getting in Namajunas’ face during staredowns and pressers, telling Rose she would steal her soul and cause her pain. Rose was withdrawn and emotional throughout the week, even brought to tears at the post weigh in media scrum. But she kept reiterating that she expected to be emotional, expected Joanna to try and aggravate her, and was prepared to be free of all that on fight night.

“I’ve had a lot of nightmares and dreams of just old memories haunting me and stuff,” Namajunas said in the post-fight press conference. “I don’t take it personally against her. That’s why they kept saying it’s just me that I’m fighting against. All the negativity that I felt coming from her, it just reminded me where I came from. I wasn’t gonna let that shut me down. She’s an awesome fighter and stuff, but I’ve dealt with a lot worse in my life.”

Jedrzejczyk called Namajunas “mentally unstable” and said she has “personal problems” on a media conference call, trying to provoke Namajunas, who has a history of mental illness through her family, including most notably, her father who she lost due to schizophrenia.

“I’m kind of grateful that Joanna tried to poke at that, because now I was able to look into it and read books on it and kind of study it,” Namajunas said. “Really try to understand what mental illness is. And I realize that we’re all pretty normal, we’re all kind of the same, we’ve all got our issues. But it’s something that we can get stronger at. Your mind is just like your body. It’s a muscle you can train and get better at.”

Namajunas dropped Jedrzejczyk with crisp boxing early in the first round. After the fight she said she calmed herself after this initial success with her mantra of C words: confidence, conditioning, composure, content, champion.

“I used to fight with hate,” Namajunas said. “There’s been a lot of aggression in my past growing up and stuff. That’s because I was hurt myself. I learned that love is a much more sustainable energy to draw on than hate.”

Whatever she is doing seems to be working. Namajunas is now the third women’s strawweight champion in UFC history. Afterward, “Thug Rose” discussed her intention to bring awareness to mental health issues.

“There’s just been a lot of trash talking and things like that,” she said. “People that aren’t, I feel like, being true to themselves or being honest. I don’t know, maybe that’s just what they feel they need to do and it’s to entertain things. But I’m just kind of sick of it. I’m sick of all the hate and anger and stuff like that. I feel like we have a duty as fighters to be a better example. Martial arts is about honor and respect.”

Coincidentally, Namajunas’ fiance Pat Barry’s advice to her as she stepped in the Octagon was this: “All you’ve gotta do is just be you.”

“I’m just trying to be that positive light as much as possible,” Namajunas said. “I’m not perfect, either. But maybe we’ll figure out a way to make this a better place. … I’ve said before leading up to this fight that I feel like its time for a new era in this sport. I think we have a great opportunity as fighters and athletes to be good role models. I’m by no means perfect, but I think we can try.”

What do you think of the new strawweight queen, Rose Namajunas?

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