Sep 9, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Female contestants for The Ultimate Fighter in the newly formed strawweight class on the Red Carpet for the show premiere at Lure Nightclub.
Sep 9, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Female contestants for The Ultimate Fighter in the newly formed strawweight class on the Red Carpet for the show premiere at Lure Nightclub. REUTERS

Coming into the first-ever women's strawweight title match between The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) contenders Rose Namajunas and Carla Esparza, the sexy pick was Namajunas. The American fighter just came off three submissions in just as many fights despite being labeled as a vicious striker and many were predicting that she will cruise to winning the inaugural title; yet, Carla Esparza had other plans and turned the tables around.

The 155-pound Invicta champion held her ground and lived up to her number 1 pick status, winning over Namajunas by submission at the 1:26 mark of the third round. The fight was wholly dominated by the 27-year old fighter who prevented Namajunas from becoming the youngest ever to win a title in the UFC. After the match, the 22-year-old American contender was fighting back tears but acknowledged that she was thoroughly handled by the veteran champion, and gave her all the props in the world.

"I was very excited to just go in there and win and take it all," said Namajunas (2-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) "I just need to go back and really just ponder everything and evolve and learn from this and grow as a woman. I felt kind of like a kid in there," the defeated Namajunas said per MMA Junkie.

Namajunas showed signs of aggression early on by a flurry of strikes, which actually did little damage. Esparza, on the other hand, bided her time, calculated her opponent and went on with her game plan to take the fight to the mat. She successfully pinned Namajunas a couple of times that the young fighter was on guard mode and was trying to counter with a submission to no avail. The fight was so one-sided that even UFC President Dana White was all praises for his new champion. White said that Esparza deserved the win and that she did an "outstanding job."

White is now lining up Brazilian Claudia Gadelha as the next opponent for his the new strawweight champion, provided that Gadelha wins her match Saturday against Joanna Jedrzejczyk in Phoenix. Both women were supposed to meet in Invicta but scheduling conflicts and injuries prevented them from ever squaring off. As for Namajunas, the young prodigy is willing to chalk up the loss to an stepping stone and a learning leasson on how to come better prepared to a fight and continue her upward trend of development.