Rose Namajunas will defend her strawweight title against Carla Esparza on May 7 at UFC 274, the company announced Thursday.
Namajunas (11-4), who lives and trains in Colorado, will be making her second title defense after a technical knockout win over Weili Zhang last April to claim her second UFC championship. Namajunas, 29, again beat Zhang via split decision in November in her first defense. She is ranked No. 3 on UFC’s women’s pound-for-pound rankings.
Esparza (18-6) is on a five-fight winning streak, most recently defeating Xiaonan Yan via technical knockout last May. She is the No. 2-ranked strawweight contender behind Zhang and is ranked No. 8 on the women’s pound-for-pound list.
Namajunas and Esparza faced each other once before in the octagon. Esparza won via submission in the finale of “The Ultimate Fighter 20” in December of 2014 to be crowned the inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion.
