UFC President Dana White was seemed to be more interested in watching the Canelo Alvarez-Dmitry Bivol fight instead of the women’s strawweight title fight between Rose Namajunas and Carla Esparza at UFC 274 this past week.
White, sitting cage side during the whole pay-per-view, kept a close eye on all the action until Namanjuas and Esparza walked to the octagon. Despite being so close to the action, the UFC premiere was pictured watching the boxing light heavyweight title bout on one of his monitors.
The rematch between Namajunas and Esparza did not live up to its expectations, as many fans said. The fight lacked charisma as both women were reluctant to let their hands and feet go, they argued.
There was much hype created among MMA fans for this fight as both fighters had already met in the octagon back in 2014.
Many fans felt it would be an easy walk in the park for Namajunas against Esparza this time as she is a much more accomplished and sound fighter now than she was back then.
Namajunas was the favorite, at least on paper, going into the fight.
But Esparza remained unfazed by the pre-fight speculations and pulled off another victory against the ‘Thug,’ raising her win-tally to 2-0 against the latter. Esparza got her hand raised via split decision to unseat Namajunas from the 115-pound throne.
But despite the title change, the crowd wasn’t impressed by the competitors, booing both fighters during the post-fight interview.
After the fight, Esparza tried to give an explanation for the lack of action during the whole five rounds, but the crowd was having none of it as they continued jeering and further voiced their frustration.
“I believe my coaches told me that I was winning, I think they said she was going to be a little bit safe in that last round,” Esparza explained.
“I’m not too sure, in that last round I was just like ‘oh my gosh, I wanna do more, I really want to set in the eyes of the judges’. I hate to say it this way, but it’s hard to fight someone who doesn’t wanna fight.”
During the post-fight conference, White himself admitted that he ‘zoned out’ during the title fight due to the lack of action.