Rose Namajunas addresses Trevor Wittman's absence, Pat Barry criticism in rambling video

Fans were perplexed when former UFC champion Rose Namajunas' longtime head coach Trevor Wittman was noticeably absent from her UFC Paris fight. In his place was her boyfriend, Pat Barry who fans have criticized over the years for his relationship with Namajunas.

Now, she's addressing both why Wittman was not there, and how she feels about the comments directed toward Barry for her loss.

"Yeah, um, and so of course because everybody like, you know, wants to s**t Pat and just makes assumptions because yeah just you know that's the way things are no matter what," she said, sometimes stumbling over her words and not completing thoughts. "But um yeah people are just gonna assume that oh you know he's the reason why [Wittman] wasn't in my corner has nothing to do with Pat it has everything to do with me and [Justin Gaethje] and him having a fight with the BMF and all that stuff and I did not want to interfere, and I stayed back."

Wittman also trains with Justin Gaethje, who fought for the BMF title on July 29, a full month before Namajunas' Paris appearance. She also alluded to some personal issues that she wasn't going to divulge.

"There's more.," she continued. "There's more to it than that but for the most part that's all you know, I think I want to say about that because, you know, our relationships are very, you know, I'm saying we're very close to people and like, I don't think that's like... yeah ... nobody's business, you know what I mean? And so everybody makes it their business but, but I understand that people are wondering and obviously like, I love Trevor."

Many fans had taken to Twitter after the fight to criticize Barry for not addressing the finger injury that likely cost Namajunas the fight. The felt that had Wittman been there, she might have won the bout.

But Namajumas seems to imply that this arrangement is not permanent and we'll see Wittman in her corner again.

"The timing for this fight when I got offered this fight, just so happened to be in the middle of [Gaethje's] training camp, and it's just like, I couldn't bring around my, you know, the state of mind that I was in," she said. "I couldn't bring that around him. The fact that I could possibly ... the fact that I could contribute, you know, to him not doing well, has not sit right with me since that Carla [Esparza] fight and so I took it upon myself to stay back, you know, and it just so happens also after Gaethje's fight Trevor, he does not have a gym right. You know what I mean? He's, uh, he's moving his gym to a different location, so it wouldn't even be any place to train anyways. And after a fight like that, most of y'all wouldn't know. But that's a super high of a high that nobody knows what that's like. And to come down from that. It's like, dude, I'm not going to bother anybody, you know, with my little side mission, right now, you know what I mean? You know, when things are a little calmer and things like that when there's a gym to train out and there's, you know, the dust is settled and my mind is a little bit better. Yes, like, we're all gonna reunite and stuff."

Unfortunately this Instagram Q & A left fans with more questions than answers.

Josh Thompson thinks Rose Namajunas is 'sabotaging her career'

One of those questions was asked by retired fighter Josh Thomson who thinks Namajuna's move to flyweight was the wrong decision.

“I thought Fiorot was just the bigger fighter and all of her shots had a lot more impact on Rose,” Thomson said on his Weighing In podcast. “I feel like Rose Namajunas is sabotaging her career. Like, what are you doing? She is so talented, and you are considered to be one of the best in the 115-pound division. Why are you going up?”

He continued, "Maybe it was for one fight. I hope you go back down. You could be the champ again. I mean, if you wanna get motivated, stay motivated, whatever it is. I just feel like she’s sabotaging herself. She doesn’t know how to handle this success or she just doesn’t want to have success around her.”

At press time its unclear if she'll stay at 125 or move back down to 115 where she was champion.