Explainer | How Rose Namajunas brought the Cold War into her UFC 261 title fight with China’s Zhang Weili
- The Lithuanian-American says she is fighting for the ‘American dream’ against Chinese superstar Zhang Weili at their UFC 261 title fight on April 24
- Namajunas’ comments echo a Cold War slogan Americans used to use in relation to the simmering feud between the US and the Soviet Union
When American-Lithuanian UFC fighter “Thug” Rose Namajunas said “better dead than red” in a recent interview with Lithuanian national public broadcaster LRT, she brought decades of Cold War history into her upcoming title fight with China’s Zhang “Magnum” Weili.
Namajunas’ (9-4) comment is interesting for a number of reasons, the most pertinent being its connection to the original Cold War between the Soviet Union and the US. Now with Cold War 2.0 – as it is sometimescalled – in full swing, between the US and China, we look at all the political overtones and how sport and politics have meshed over the years.
What did Namajunas say and what does it mean?
Namajunas’ comment, “better dead than red”, came after she said she had watched the 2012 documentary The Other Dream Team, which chronicles the Lithuanian national basketball team’s journey to the bronze medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, as well as the broader historical context of the fall of the Soviet Union, which allowed Lithuania to re-establish its independence.
Namajunas’ quote was originally a Cold War slogan about the prospect of the US going to nuclear war with the USSR rather than becoming a communist society, a conflict that started in 1947, not long after the end of the Second World War. The Soviet Union was built around Marxist political ideologies in theory, much like China’s current ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party.
How does Namajunas’ comment invoke the Second Cold War?
Rising tensions between the United States and China hit overdrive once former Republican president Donald Trump took office in 2016. He called out China’s trade policies, which ignited a geopolitical feud between the two superpowers. Namajunas said in her interview that she felt compelled to comment on the subject after watching the sport documentary.