UFC 217 will go down in the history books as a night of upsets and one of the most memorable events the promotion has ever put on. All three defending champions would end up being on the losing side of their fights by the nights end, and it all started with “Thug” Rose Namajunas scoring an unbelievable first round finish over Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
Jedrzejczyk had been trash talking Namajunas in every way possible during the build up to their UFC 217 title fight but “Thug” Rose wouldn’t fall for any of the pre-fight antics. This only seemed to get Joanna even more intense and it turns out this was Rose’s intention all along.
“This was a fight of mental warfare,” Namajunas said in an interview with Ariel Helwani earlier. “I beat her at her own game. I think each time that I wasn’t giving her nothing, she needs that. She needs somebody to fire back. I just wasn’t gonna do it and I just stuck with it. It definitely took a lot of restraint on my end, it took a lot of control. It took a lot out of me to do it. But I knew that’s what I had to do. I knew that’s the way to beat her is to shut her mental game down.”
