Who is Nojus Namajunas, brother of UFC strawweight champion Rose Namajunas?
Nojus Namajunas is the brother of UFC strawweight champion Rose Namajunas and is also an MMA fighter himself. Nojus Namajunas recently made his professional MMA debut against Tyson Craig at Mountain Force MMA 23 (MTF 23) in Logan, Utah. Nojus lost the featherweight bout via TKO at 11 seconds of the second round.
Nojus Namajunas made his amateur debut in 2019, losing his first bout against Isaiah Hernandez via split decision. However, Namajunas bounced back with a KO win over Robin Maggs in his next amateur bout at Fury FC 37.
Nojus Namajunas started training with Rose Namajunas
Ahead of his professional debut, Nojus Namajunas shared details of his MMA journey in an interview with MMA Junkie. Nojus had his first interaction with combat sports at the age of six when he started training under Taekwondo grandmaster Chon Som Cho along with his sister Rose Namajunas. Sharing details of his early training, Nojus told Nolan King from MMA Junkie -
“(Cho) had us all line up in a row, He went all down the line. He would have us line up shoulder-to-shoulder all the way. He would go up to us and punch right in front of our faces, like an inch in front of our eyes. The idea was that you couldn’t blink when something is coming at you, so you could see, you know? That blink: If you blinked, you had to go do 10 pushups on your knuckles. He just did that for the whole class for the whole hour. We were just doing pushups until we figured it out,” Namajunas said.
Nojus Namajunas walked away from formal MMA training at the age of 13 and went on to start his own private piano studio, where he instructed more than 40 students. However, his sister's accomplishments convinced Nojus to rejuvenate his MMA career. Speaking of Rose's break into MMA, Nojus Namajunas further said -
“When she got on ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ show, I thought that was really awesome because that was her chance." Namajunas said. "That was her big break. She took that far. She took it all the way to a title shot. She lost that fight against Carla (Esparza), and from there, for some reason – I told her because I was actually at that fight; she was only like 22 – I was like, ‘Rose, you’re only 22. You’re so young. You don’t even get your full adult brain until you’re 26.’ That’s the main thing, that in my mind was inspiring because she was so young and she was already at the pinnacle of the sport.”
Rose Namajunas won the UFC Strawweight title at UFC 261, knocking out reigning champion Zhang Weili with a vicious head kick.