Brent Lang Executive Editor UFC Strawweight Champion Rose Namajunas’s life story will be the subject of “Thug Rose: Mixed Martial Artist,” a new documentary that will debut at the Austin Film Festival before premiering on Fight Pass, the combat sport’s official streaming service.
The film was produced by UFC, which hopes it will be the first of many such projects. “We want to do as many these as we possibly can,” Crowley Sullivan, vice president and general manager of Fight Pass, told Variety. “Throughout the history of this sport there are all kinds of personalities and accomplishments that we want to highlight.
There are so many stories of athletes rising from modest beginnings to become iconic figures that we want to tell.” That’s certainly the case with Namajunas, the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants, who overcame an abusive childhood and tough economic circumstances, to become one of the fiercest competitors in the world and the first woman in UFC history to regain her championship title after losing it.
She has used her platform to become an advocate for mental wellness and an avid environmentalist. To tell her story, UFC Originals enlisted Marius Markevicius, the filmmaker behind “The Other Dream Team,” which looked at the Bronze Medal-winning 1992 Lithuanian men’s basketball team. “This film takes you through the adversity and triumphs,” says Chris Kartzmark, SVP of production and programming at UFC. “We see here struggling with the weight of being a champion.
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