Inside the Octagon With New UFC Documentary Thug Rose

Thug Rose: Mixed Martial Artist debuted at the Austin Film Festival this week, and while it certainly contains the violence one might expect from participant in combat sports, the story of this particular fighter exposes much, much more.

From her skill as a pianist to her relationship with former UFC fighter Pat Barry, the story of two-time UFC Strawweight Champion Rose Namajunas contains both spectacular highs and lows, inside the ring and out. Ahead of its Nov. 9 launch on Fight Pass, the Austin Chronicle sat down with her and director Marius Markevicius to talk about the film.

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Austin Chronicle: There's a lot of tough content here. Tell me about the collaboration and how you made those decisions.

Marius Markevicius: I think the key word is collaborating, and I think that before going into any of the tougher topics, Rose and I would have conversations. I didn't want to catch her off guard or anything like that. At the end of the day, I just wanted Rose to tell her story, and just give a comfortable and safe environment to do that, not to push it over a line that she didn't want to go. I was just fortunate to have Rose and Pat being really open and honest. Her biggest trait is just emotional honesty. She can't help but do that.

AC: Tell me about playing piano as part of your life and some of the misconceptions people have about fighters.

Rose Namajunas: There's lots of misconceptions. I do think that I probably hit more of them than most fighters do. I still actively play. If anything, now I'm at a spot where I do feel like I have a little more time to concentrate a little bit more on that. I've even tossed around the idea that it would be so cool to maybe make an album one day. That'd be dope. I always try to perfect one song each training camp, just to offset some of the rigorous training and things. It just helps my mind decompress sometimes from training. But sometimes it is challenging also, just sitting in a chair and your back's hurting. And it transcends into my fighting as well. I think just practicing timing, rhythm, creativity. And we're fighters, but we're also artists. So I think it really helps balance out what we do.

AC: What do you think most people don't understand about fighting?

RN: It's pretty, I guess, normal to assume that most fighters, we come from maybe some sort of struggle or something that attracts us to fighting. And that is for sure something that is explored a lot in this film. But I think what maybe people forget about is the highs and the lows. There's definitely the highs that compliment those lows. And it’s great juxtapositions between some of those. The hard times like the adrenaline spike of winning, or getting your hand raised, and just even the day to day journey, and the training sessions, and the camaraderie that we share between training partners and teammates and coaches. I wish more people could get a little peek into our lives with that as far as just the relationships, and the journey that we go through. There's everything.

AC: Yeah. It's an individual sport.

RN: Yeah.

AC: Tell me about when you're crafting the film, you have a center, you have this focus, but then you have all these other people, too. Tell me about how you ingratiated all those voices together to tell this story.

MM: There's a narrative thread that I did want to present. The movie starts with Rose playing a classic piano piece, that Chopin Fantaisie-impromptu. I think the film itself is called Thug Rose: Mixed Martial Artist, with the emphasis on the artist, because musicality and art in her life and background, her family. Her father was a painter, her mother's a pianist. It goes into her DNA, and you see that in the ring. You see the artistry, and her footwork, and the rhythm.

I think that that's a thread that we tried to keep going through the narrative. But then there's all the periphery, and family, and training. But that community I found was incredibly strong. That was something that I learned. Maybe another stereotype breakdown about how special, and how welcoming, and how tight the community of fighters and trainers in the gym, and how cathartic and healthy it seems every day,

AC: How do you keep that even keel, knowing that the thing you're going after is something you can’t completely control.

RN: When you feel like you've done everything that you could in your power to be prepared as best as you can. That is one assuring thing that it's like, "All right, this is all I can do." It's basically whether or not it's in God's plans for me to be the best comparatively to other people. But I do have that inside of me? I don't know where it comes from or why or what, but I do believe that when I do prepare my best, that I am the best. And maybe that's not always going to be true when I'm 42 or whatever.

AC: I think maybe my favorite part of the doc was Pat talking about when he falls in love after getting hit in the face. There is a love story in here as well, and it's not the focus per se, but it's a big part of her life. How did you work in the relationship of Pat and Rose together?

MM: Pat and Rose have been together a long time, and they're always together, and they share life together, and work together. And so that to me is interesting, also. It's a unique relationship. I think it's also very relatable. They're regular people and have regular daily lives, and go through the same things that all the rest of us do.

AC: How do you feel about that, and the way it was portrayed, and just including that in your story?

RN: I really hope people can see how important he is in my life. He's such a big energy, and he's just larger than life sometimes. I wouldn't have been able to get through what I've gotten through in life. And even to this day, he just deflects so much dumb crap. So I really am thankful for Pat to be my rock, my source, my strength, everything like that.

And obviously coming from the documentary is, obviously male figures in my life were not great. I'm very thankful to be able to heal from that, and not just be that bitter woman that hates men or whatever. No, there's good men in this world. And just because there's some bad ones, there's lots of good ones out there. So I hope that that can also be a great message for women to see that, yeah, maybe men have wronged you in the past, but that doesn't mean they're all like that.

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Austin Film Festival, Oct. 27-Nov. 3. Details and badges at austinfilmfestival.com.

Thug Rose will debut on UFC Fight Pass on Nov. 9.