The rematch between former strawweight champions, Rose Namajunas and Jessica Andrade, will not happen at UFC 249.
Two days after the controversial fight card was re-tooled, it has lost one of its biggest matchups as multiple reports claimed ‘Thug Rose’ has dropped out of the strawweight rematch that was expected to co-headline the pay-per-view event.
In May 2019, Namajunas lost the strawweight championship to the Brazilian fighter after a shocking knockout defeat at UFC 237.
Prior to this setback, the 27-year old American scored back-to-back wins against Joanna Jędrzejczyk to become the new queen of 115-pound division.
The UFC 249 co-main event was supposed to serve as Namajunas’ return trip to the Octagon after almost a year of hiatus.
“Rose Namajunas is out of her scheduled bout with Jessica Andrade at UFC249 for undisclosed reasons, first reported by Combate and confirmed with sources by ESPN on Wednesday. No replacement has been set yet to fight Andrade,” ESPN MMA wrote on Twitter.
Back Up And Running
Despite the criticisms, White is doing everything in his power to make the UFC 249 PPV event happen, with a tribal land in California set to serve as its host.
“I’ll tell you this, I’m this close to getting a deal done,” White told ESPN.
“So this place where this fight is going to be on April 18 I have locked up for two months, so I’m going to continue to pump fights out. I also secured an island. I’ve got an island.”
“The infrastructure is being built right now. We’re going to do all of our international fights on this island.”
“So when we do this fight April 18, international and in the United States, we’re going to start cranking. The UFC will be back up and running, internationally and here in the States.”
Check out the updated line-up for the UFC Fight Card:
Main Card
Tony Feguson vs Justin Gaethje – for the interim lightweight championship
Jessica Andrade vs opponent (to be announced)
Yorgan De Castro vs Greg Hardy
Niko Price vs Vicente Luque
Jeremy Stephens vs Calvin Kattar
Undercard
Francis Ngannou vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik
Uriah Hall vs Ronaldo Souza
Alexander Hernandez vs Omar Morales
Ray Borg vs Marlon Vera
Michael Johnson vs Khama Worthy
Sijara Eubanks vs Sarah Moras
Sam Alvey vs Ryan Spann
(Featured Image Source: Instagram/ Allow MMA and Jessica Andrade)