UFC: Zhang Weili ‘ready for anything’ as Joanna Jedrzejczyk targets her durability
- Chinese champion ‘hasn’t stopped moving’ since title win but is now getting ‘back to business’
- Zhang admits there is a target on her back – ‘everybody dreams of fighting the champion and winning a title’
It’s been over four months since Zhang “Magnum” Weili shook up the world of mixed martial arts but China’s first-ever UFC champion readily admits her feet are only just now touching down to the ground.
“Things have been very busy with interviews and activities all over the world,” Zhang says. “I have been getting messages and calls from everywhere and it feels like I haven’t stopped moving, but now I am able to get back to business and get back to fighting.”
Zhang’s refrain since winning the world strawweight title – with a 42-second TKO of Jessica Andrade – has been that raising the belt in Shenzhen was “only just the beginning”. If there were any lingering doubts about the enormity of the task now ahead they have been shaken off over the past week as the 30-year-old gets down to the dirty work of fight camp.
Ahead lies the first title defence for Zhang (20-1), against one of the fight game’s established greats in former strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk (16-3) at UFC 248 in Las Vegas on March 7.
This time around there’s no talk of the Chinese fighter coming in as underdog as she did against the more UFC-savvy Andrade (20-7). She also knows full well there will be a target on her back, now and forever more.