LAS VEGAS -- In many ways, Rose Namajunas is a woman who is a product of her environment. She grew up in Milwaukee, Wisc., in one of the roughest sections of town. From a young age, she knew as she walked to school to keep her head on a swivel and to avoid turning the wrong way.
Trouble lurked everywhere. Her budding martial arts skills could be need to be used at any moment.
"The neighborhood in which I went to high school, there were super crazy vibes there," said Namajunas, a two-time UFC strawweight champion who faces Amanda Ribas Saturday at Apex on the UFC campus in the five-round flyweight main event of UFC Vegas 89. "Like, this was a bad neighborhood. Jeffrey Dahmer lived there. It got me in touch with my instinctual side, always being ready to karate chop somebody and take off in a sprint."
Dahmer, of course, is the Milwaukee-born serial killer and cannibal, who killed and dismembered 16 men between 1978 and 1991. He was in prison when she was born and died when she was just 2.
Dahmer's lore only added a strange eeriness to an already tough area where crime was common and fighting was a way of life.
It helped make her tough, and make her the fighter she is today. She's 15-6 and coming off of back-to-back losses, but she dreams of becoming the second UFC woman to win titles in two weight classes. Amanda Nunes held featherweight and bantamweight titles. Namajunas has had two stints as strawweight champion, but her flyweight debut got off to an uneven start when she dropped a five-round decision to Manon Fiorot in Paris in September.
That, though, didn't discourage Namajunas; it's not easy to discourage someone who grew up where she did.
"I still believe, to be honest with you, that I'm the best when I'm at my best," she said.
There's saying it, there's believing it and then there's proving it, and Namajunas has to start the toughest part on Saturday when she faces Ribas. Winning isn't really the primary thought, though she needs a win at the end of the day. It's more about the way she fights.
If she fights up to her standard, it's all she can do. But she needs to do that and needs to start soon.
"I genuinely just want to put on a good performance," Namajunas said. "I know it's up to God's will if that will happen but I know it's all possible. Like, when I first knocked out Joanna [Jedrzejczyk], I was like 'Oh, that will probably never happen again.' Like, that feeling. That magical feeling or whatever, and then it happened again and, 'Oh no, it happened in even better fashion,' and so I just know that anything is possible.
"But I also know that it's not like it's going to happen with a snap of the fingers. It has to happen organically and it has to happen naturally. So I've put in all of the work that I could do and I'm really proud of myself for the preparation. I just have to be content with that and know that the result is out of my control. I can show up and dow what I do best and what I am designed to do."
Her confidence remains high despite setbacks like back-to-back losses to Carla Esparza and Fiorot. She's moved to flyweight with the goal of joining Nunes as the only women to hold two weight class titles in the UFC, though it's only fair to note that Nunes held hers simultaneously.
But it remains a massive achievement if it can be done.
"If anybody can be a two-division champion next, I believe it's myself," she said. "That's what I'm really going for and it's kind of like the last really big accomplishment I would like to do in my career. We're prize fighters and this is our job and our profession, and finances are important. But what really drives me and my spirit is getting those accomplishments."