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Former two-time women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas was originally slated to face former flyweight titleholder Alexa Grasso at UFC 324, but Grasso was forced out of the bout due to injury. When the third-ranked Grasso fell out of the fight, No. 2 ranked Natália Silva stepped in.
Silva comes from a taekwondo background. So does Namajunas. Heading into the final three weeks of her UFC 324 training camp, Namajunas decided to ‘get back in touch with her roots.’
“We have three weeks of training camp left, so I’m very excited,” Namajunas said on her YouTube channel. “We have this girl, Kristina Teachout that’s coming in town. she’s a taekwondo bronze medalist, Olympian taekwondo practitioner. And so I’m very excited because obviously I’m fighting Natália Silva, so she’s got that taekwondo base and everything like that. And she adapts it for MMA very well.
“But even myself, that’s my base too. I just don’t use it as much as she does. I rely on my boxing a lot, but I want to get back in touch with my roots. We’re just kind of brining her (Teachout) in just to kind of help with that and get my kind of dexterity up with my kicks and stuff and reaction and timing and everything like that.”
Namajunas didn’t bring in Teachout to replicate Silva’s fighting style. She was brought in for the learning experience and growth.
“I don’t plan on her mimicking Natalia by any means, but I’m just a true martial artist. I feel like everything helps and everything can be applied if you have the imagination for it,” Namajuna said.
“I just pray everything goes according to plan and everything goes smooth and whatnot.”
