Rose Namajunas was born on June 29, 1992, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Lithuanian parents who had immigrated to the United States in September 1991. She was named after her great-grandmother, Rožė Gotšalkaitė Namajūnienė, and she still speaks Lithuanian with her grandparents. Her father, Artūras Namajunas, struggled with schizophrenia and left the family when Rose was young; he died of pneumonia in Germany in 2008, when she was 16. Her mother trained as a classical pianist at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and Rose herself has played piano since age five.

She grew up in a tough, working-class Milwaukee neighborhood where she witnessed violence from a young age; the nickname “Thug Rose,” which has followed her through her entire fighting career, originated with neighborhood friends rather than any manufactured persona. Namajunas has also disclosed publicly that she was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, without providing further detail. Her younger brother, Nojus Namajunas, runs a piano studio and became a professional MMA fighter in his own right, debuting in March 2021.

Namajunas began training in Taekwondo at age five and earned a junior black belt (poom) by age nine, later adding karate and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and wrestling during her senior year at Milwaukee High School of the Arts. As a teenager she started kickboxing and MMA training under Duke Roufus at Roufusport in Milwaukee, the gym where she also met longtime partner and coach Pat Barry.

Namajunas turned professional in January 2013, submitting Emily Kagan by rear-naked choke at Invicta FC 4. She earned a spot on the all-female cast of The Ultimate Fighter season 20 in 2014, a tournament created to crown the UFC’s first Women’s Strawweight Champion. She submitted Alex Chambers by rear-naked choke, then finished both Joanne Calderwood and Randa Markos by kimura to reach the live TUF 20 Finale on December 12, 2014, where she lost to Carla Esparza by rear-naked choke in the third round. Even in defeat, Namajunas collected two $25,000 season bonuses for Performance of the Season and Fight of the Season, an early sign of how she was viewed inside the promotion.

She built her name on the UFC roster over the next three years with wins over Angela Hill, Paige VanZant (a Performance of the Night submission), Tecia Torres and Michelle Waterson, offset by a split-decision Fight of the Night loss to Karolina Kowalkiewicz. That run of results, built on technical grappling and a durable chin against elite strikers, positioned her for a title shot against dominant champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk in late 2017.

Namajunas won her first UFC Women’s Strawweight Championship on November 4, 2017, stopping the previously dominant champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk by first-round TKO at UFC 217 in Madison Square Garden, a Performance of the Night finish that ended Jędrzejczyk’s bid to tie Ronda Rousey’s UFC title-defense record. She successfully defended the belt against Jędrzejczyk in an April 7, 2018 rematch at UFC 223 by unanimous decision, before losing the title by second-round knockout to Jéssica Andrade at UFC 237 in May 2019. She avenged that loss by split decision at UFC 251 in July 2020, a result that helped set up a second title run.

Namajunas became a two-time champion on April 24, 2021, knocking out Zhang Weili with a first-round head kick at UFC 261, then retained the belt in a closely contested split-decision rematch against Weili at UFC 268 in November 2021. Her second reign ended on May 7, 2022, when she lost a split decision to Carla Esparza at UFC 274. After an extended break from competition, she moved up to flyweight and made her debut in the division with a September 2023 decision loss to Manon Fiorot. She went on to beat Amanda Ribas and Tracy Cortez by unanimous decision through 2024, lost a decision to Erin Blanchfield that November, then beat Miranda Maverick by unanimous decision at UFC on ESPN 69 in June 2025.

As of this update (August 2026), Namajunas’s most recent fight was a closely scored, unanimous-decision loss to Natália Silva in a flyweight title-eliminator bout at UFC 324 on January 24, 2026, a result several media scorecards and outlets scored in Namajunas’s favor. She underwent eye surgery after sustaining eye pokes during that fight and has been sidelined for recovery since, with no opponent or return date officially confirmed as of this writing. She remains ranked inside the UFC women’s flyweight top ten and has appeared in the pound-for-pound rankings earlier in 2026, and holds official UFC status as a two-time former Women’s Strawweight Champion with a professional record in the low-to-mid teens in wins against single-digit losses.

Like most UFC fighters, Namajunas has never drawn a fixed annual salary; her income moves in large, fight-by-fight increments tied to disclosed purses, win and performance bonuses, pay-per-view points during her championship runs, and sponsorship pay, so any year-by-year total is an approximation rather than a confirmed figure. Her highest-earning periods were 2017-2018, around her first title win and defense, and 2021-2022, spanning her second title reign and its loss, when her disclosed and reported purses reached the high five and low six figures per fight. Aggregated reporting on her UFC career earnings through UFC 268 alone put the total near $1.8 million, and her single largest reported payday, the roughly $972,000 she took home from her UFC 274 title loss to Carla Esparza, pushed her cumulative UFC earnings well past $2.7 million gross before taxes, coaching splits and training expenses.

Namajunas’s pay scaled sharply with her title status. Widely reported purse figures for her first championship win at UFC 217 put her payday at $230,000, made up of a $150,000 show fee, a $50,000 Performance of the Night bonus, and $30,000 in Reebok sponsorship tier pay; for her successful title defense at UFC 223 the following April, reported figures list a $240,000 payday made up of a $100,000 show fee, a $100,000 win bonus, and $40,000 in fight-week incentive pay. Neither New York event is subject to mandatory state purse disclosure, so these numbers come from combat-sports pay trackers rather than an athletic commission filing, though they are consistent with her rising status as a two-time champion.

Her largest reported single-fight payday came at UFC 274 in May 2022, where compensation trackers estimate roughly $972,000 in total pay for her title-losing effort against Carla Esparza, made up of an estimated $300,000 show fee, roughly $600,000 in estimated pay-per-view points, a $30,000 bonus and $42,000 in sponsorship pay — the UFC does not confirm individual PPV-point splits, so the pay-per-view portion is an industry estimate rather than a disclosed figure. By contrast, her most recent disclosed purse is a matter of public record: Georgia Athletic Commission filings, reported by Sports Illustrated, show she was paid $500,000 ($250,000 to show plus a $250,000 win bonus) for her non-title flyweight win over Miranda Maverick at UFC on ESPN 69 in June 2025, topping the entire card’s disclosed payroll and demonstrating that her per-fight pay has stayed near career-high levels even outside title fights, reflecting tenure and former-champion pay-scale status inside the UFC’s compensation structure. Namajunas remained under UFC contract as of August 2026; as with virtually all UFC fighter agreements, the exact multi-fight terms of her current deal are not publicly disclosed.

Namajunas signed a personal sponsorship agreement with Reebok in February 2019, distinct from the UFC’s blanket Reebok outfitting-pay program that applied to the whole roster between 2015 and 2020. Since Venum took over as the UFC’s official outfitting partner in April 2021, she has been paid through that program’s tiered per-fight structure as well. Beyond apparel, reporting and her own public sponsor acknowledgments list partnerships with Monster Energy, RVCA Sport, supplement brand PERFECT Sports, and fight-gear brand ONX Labs, among other combat-sports-industry sponsors typical of a former two-time champion. None of these deals has a publicly confirmed dollar value; secondary trackers estimate her combined annual endorsement income in the hundreds of thousands of dollars at her career peak, though that figure is not independently verified.

No mainstream sports or business reporting documents Namajunas owning a company, gym or other outside business venture. Her training affiliations have shifted over her career — from Grudge Training Center (2012-2016) to 303 Training Center in Colorado (2016-2020) and, more recently, sessions alongside coach Trevor Wittman’s Colorado-based team and her fiancé and longtime coach Pat Barry — but these are training relationships, not ownership stakes. Some fan and aggregator sites vaguely reference “investments” as part of her financial profile without naming a specific vehicle, business or holding; that claim is not corroborated by primary reporting and should be treated as unconfirmed.

Namajunas has not publicly disclosed details of a home purchase, car collection or other major personal asset. Some secondary net-worth sites mention property in Colorado, consistent with her more recent training base in the state, but this is not corroborated by public records or primary reporting and is best treated as unconfirmed rather than a documented asset. No specific residence, investment property or luxury purchase attributed to Namajunas is confirmed in credible reporting as of this update.