The 5 best Strawweight title fights in UFC history

#4 Rose Namajunas vs. Jessica Andrade – UFC 237

Rose Namajunas was slammed unconscious by Jessica Andrade, ending her title reign

UFC 237’s Strawweight title fight between champion Rose Namajunas and challenger Jessica Andrade wasn’t the most alluring for casual fans, but for hardcore fans, it presented a serious question: how could Namajunas, who had somehow defeated the seemingly unstoppable Joanna Jedrzejczyk twice, deal with the power and brute force of ‘Bate Estaca’?

As it turned out, she dealt with it pretty well for a round at least. In an exciting opening stanza, Andrade came out as she’d always done – like a human buzzsaw, winging her trademark combinations towards ‘Thug Rose’ – but Namajunas proved her worth by avoiding the majority of the shots and using her movement and timing to hurt the challenger with her own strikes, cutting her under the left eye.

Andrade scored a couple of takedowns, but couldn’t really advance her position from there either, and as the round came to an end, she found herself knocked down by a hard knee from Namajunas, who had her in real trouble for the first time in her Strawweight run. Going into the second, the advantage lay with the champ.

The second round started in the same way, with ‘Thug Rose’ deftly avoiding Andrade’s charge to land counters, and once again the Brazilian decided to go for a takedown. Namajunas had seen success in the first round by countering the takedown with a kimura attempt – like Japanese legend Kazushi Sakuraba had done so many times – but this time, it turned out to be an error.

When Namajunas laced Andrade’s arm up and refused to let go, ‘Bate Estaca’ lived up to her nickname, lifting her high into the air before slamming her down to the ground, directly onto her head. ‘Thug Rose’ was knocked senseless by the impact, and in one of the craziest finishes in the history of the division, another new champion was crowned.