Back in September, Dana White said he was working on Weili Zhang defending against Rose Namajunas as the next strawweight championship fight. Zhang’s coach, Pedro Jordao, recently told MMA Fighting they are expecting to face Thug Rose early next year.
Jordao also said that Zhang is not afraid to go to the ground with Namajunas.
“People say (Weili) is very strong, but we’ve seen how technical she is, too,” Jordao said to MMA Fighting. “I trust Weili and think she will be able to defeat Rose. I know how powerful her strikes are, her technique on the ground, how strong is her guillotine and rear-naked choke, her armbar. She’s very confident on the ground. She’s not afraid to go to the ground.”
The UFC had attempted to book the fight earlier this year as well but Namajunas turned it down due to concerns about her mental health. She opened up about this on the MMA Unfiltered podcast.
“I was even offered Weili at the time, but I just – at the time I was still dealing with a lot of my own (things), just getting my head right, and I hired a mental coach that’s helping me do a lot of different things,” Namajunas said to UFC Unfiltered. “And so there was a lot of work that needed to be done.”
