Rose Namajunas recounts viral moment knocking Cortez’s eyelashes off her face: ‘That is classic stuff’

Rose Namajunas has scored more than a few knockouts during her career, but knocking some fake eyelashes off her opponent’s face was definitely a new one.

This past Saturday, Namajunas cruised to a unanimous decision win over Tracy Cortez in the UFC Denver main event, but perhaps the most memorable moment came early in the fight, when the former strawweight champion connected with a stiff punch to the face. The shot landed with such impact that Cortez’s fake eyelashes went flying into the air, which was captured in a series of viral photos and videos at the event.

“That’s crazy,” Namajunas said about the moment on Monday’s The MMA Hour. “I noticed something was up with her eye. The camera literally captured it [flying off her face]. You can’t make that stuff up. God’s got a sense of humor. That is classic stuff. Bless her heart.”

From a safety standpoint, wearing fake eyelashes into the octagon could be a concern, especially if it gets knocked back into a fighter’s eye.

In this case, the fake eyelashes just got knocked off Cortez’s face, but Namajunas admits she would never even contemplate wearing something like that into the cage.

“That’s the one thing that I’ve always been [cognizant about],” Namajunas said. “I’ve had eye injuries sort of, so that’s something that I’m always routinely checking my eyes. That’s the one thing with the fight game, teeth and eyes and the nose too.”

During her own career, Namajunas said she’s never had much interest in wearing something like fake eyelashes, even for photoshoots set up by UFC.

Namajunas pointed specifically to past conversations she had with Suzy Friton, a wardrobe and makeup artist for the UFC who sadly passed away in 2021, about that very subject.

“I don’t even wear fake eyelashes, period,” Namajunas said. “So rest in peace Suzy, she always did my makeup great, but she was always trying to make me wear [eyelashes]. She’d always be like, ‘You’ve got to wear these eyelashes,’ and I’m like, ‘Girl, I can’t do that. I know it looks good or whatever but it makes me so tired.’ My eyelids close when I wear those things. Nah, I’m not doing it.

“That was the battle between me and her for a long time. Rest in peace. I would never do that.”

When it comes to Cortez’s decision to wear fake eyelashes, Namajunas joked that she may have to continue with the tradition now that this moment in their fight happened.

“It’s a thing now,” Namajunas said. “I’m curious to see. It’s dangerous, I would not recommend her wearing it, but it’s almost like don’t you gotta wear them [now]?”

As far as her actual performance at UFC Denver, Namajunas was largely satisfied but still recognized a couple of areas where she could have improved.

All in all, there were really no complaints from her, however, as Namajunas dominated the majority of the fight before winning a comfortable decision on the judges’ scorecards.

“There’s certain things obviously I know I could do better and I know I’m going to keep improving, but I was really happy,” Namajunas said. “Because I was a little bummed my last fight, even though I won, I just didn’t have the speed, I was dealing with some injuries, so I was little bit frustrated because I felt like I had really worked on a bunch of things I wasn’t able to show. I felt like I was able to do that this time. Obviously, I wanted the finish. I felt like I jumped on top of her and helped her recover. I feel like I could have finished in the first and I sort of blew that opportunity. Then I would say, after re-watching it, I could have been a little bit more active toward the end.

“There’s stuff to improve. That’s why, going into the fight, my plan wasn’t to wrestle that much. Only if she was trying to wrestle me, to like reverse the position or just show her a quick flash of wrestling, but it was so successful that I was like, ‘OK.’ It was very useful. I think I’m really going to focus on being able to do that while still maintaining that same pop and speed that I had in the first round but in those later rounds.”