MEAWW.COM / NEWS / SPORTS

Rose Namajunas defends ‘better dead than red’ comment on UFC opponent Zhang Weili, Internet calls her ‘red-baiter’

Weili is UFC's first and only champion from China. Namajunas framed her title fight with Weili as a battle against communism, saying that Weili represents 'red' China

American mixed martial artist Rose Namajunas, currently signed to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), said she does not regret saying her opposition to communism is part of her motivation for her April 24 fight against champion Zhang Weili at UFC 261, according to a report. Weili is UFC's first and only champion from China.

Namajunas framed her title fight with Weili as a battle against communism, saying that Weili represents “red” China. Her philosophy, she said, was “better dead than red” -- an anti-communist expression coined during the Cold War. Namajunas brought up her own family’s history as Lithuanians dealing with Communist Russia as part of her reasoning. She also said that she had drawn inspiration from the 2012 documentary, ‘The Other Dream Team’, which focuses on the 1992 Lithuanian men's national basketball team entering the Barcelona Summer Olympics as an independent country after the fall of the Soviet Union.

READ MORE

Who is Elaina Yang? Minnesota high schoolers stage walkout to support student targeted with anti-Asian slurs, texts

Who is Danny Yu Chang? Asian man whose face was fractured in attack wants to leave SF: 'Nothing is safe here'

In an interview with Ariel Helwani, she said, "If you're confused about any of my opinions, you can watch the documentary and you could get a good idea as to what my family had to go through, the reason I'm in the United States today, the reason that I do mixed martial arts, all of that stuff," Namajunas said in the interview. "I'd probably have a really different life if it wasn't for everything in that documentary, how Lithuanians had to struggle with communism oppression.”

"The reason that I brought it up and that I referenced it is because the reporter suggested I had animosity toward past opponents, and that's what maybe caused some motivation in those fights, and in this one there's no animosity so maybe there's a lack of motivation. But that couldn't be further from the truth,” she said. 

Namajunas reportedly also said her comments were not personal, adding that she fights “for freedom, and I’ve got the Christ consciousness, I’ve got Lithuanian blood, and I’ve got the American dream — and all of those things, I’m taking with me into this fight.” She said she views all of her opponents as "red”. She said, "They're just the person standing in the way of my dream.”

"I love Weili," Namajunas said. "I don't know her. I know she wants to be friends and all that stuff. It would be great to get to know her, if we could, if it's possible."
Online, Namajunas has received a lot of criticism for the comments. “Rose Namajunas flat out expressed a desire to beat up Zhang Weili for existing while Chinese and we still got yeehaws and meemaws on the timeline talking about 'you don’t know what she meant by that'. MMA fans are different,” said a Twitter user.

Another Twitter user said, “Rose Namajunas: I'm a racist Red-baiter & am promoting bad blood against a Chinese national b/c of her nationality at a time of rising Sinophobia.” One Twitter user said, “It's crazy to me that Rose Namajunas said some off the wall crazily racist shit about Weili Zhang but people are defending her by saying ‘sHe'S jUsT dEnOunCiNg CoMmUnIsM’ … When did Zhang Weili ever endorse communism or say she's a communist?”

The MMA fighter’s words come in the wake of rising anti-Asian bigotry in the US. Among many other incidents, last month, the country witnessed a shooting spree where eight people, mostly Asians, were shot dead at three massage parlors in Atlanta and nearby Cherokee County in Georgia. It also saw Asian-Americans get brutally attacked on more than one occasion. It also saw a church vandalized with anti-Asian hate speech -- for the fourth time in a year.