UFC: Reinvigorated Joanna Jedrzejczyk eyes spring comeback fight against Namajunas, Zhang or Esparza – ‘I feel the fire’
- Former UFC strawweight champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk has not fought since a decision loss to Zhang Weili in March 2020
- Jedrzejczyk has rediscovered her passion for the sport and sees Namajunas, Zhang and Esparza as viable foes for 2022 comeback
It’s been almost two years since Poland’s Joanna Jedrzejczyk last stepped foot in the UFC’s Octagon, but the reinvigorated former strawweight champion is hoping that changes soon.
Jedrzejczyk, now 34 years old, last fought at UFC 248 in March of 2020, when she challenged China’s Zhang Weili in a bid to reclaim the UFC strawweight title. The fight went down as one of the best in UFC history, but it did not go the way she planned. After five, razor-close rounds, she lost by unanimous decision, returning to Poland with a serious hematoma and worse, no championship belt in her luggage.
It was a tough setback for the former champ, one that prompted her to take some time away from the sport to focus on other aspects of her life.
“The last 18 years, I‘ve been focused only on my fighting career,” Jedrzejczyk told the Post from a coffee shop in Warsaw. “I forgot about myself as a human, as a woman, as a businesswoman.”
Jedrzejczyk has made the most of her time away from the sport, dedicating herself to a dizzying list of business ventures, projects and new hobbies – from buying a new home to kick-starting a career in professional motorsports.
“I’m doing so many things,” she said. “Last weekend I did my first race. I want to be a driver – a professional driver, a racing driver – and in the future I want to do [the] Dakar [rally], maybe in three or four years after I retire from martial arts.
“I’m opening another company, I’m signing other deals, and I’m enjoying my life.”
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The former strawweight champ’s hiatus seems to have served its purpose. While she never stopped training, she says she has recently rediscovered her passion for MMA and will soon return to American Top Team in South Florida to begin preparing for her next fight.
She plans to negotiate a new deal with the UFC first, but is optimistic that she’ll be back in the cage by March or April.
“The most important thing is that I’m having fun with training again,” she said. “I feel the fire – the really big fire – and I can’t wait to get back to the States in the middle of January and start my camp.”
“I just want to be back,” she added later. “I don’t want to sit here and wait another six, eight, 12 months. It’s not that UFC put pressure on me that I have to take another fight. I just want to do what’s best for me, and I feel like I want to fight and be back in the UFC Octagon March [or] April.”
As a decorated former champion and one of the most popular fighters in the strawweight division, Jedrzejczyk will always have plenty of options in terms of opponents.
Her preferred choice would be a title shot against the division’s reigning queen Rose Namajunas, whom she’s lost to twice previously, but the former champ recognises that’s a bit of a long shot, particularly given that Namajunas is weeks removed from a taxing decision win over Zhang.”
“I understand Rose’s position,” Jedrzejczyk said of Namajunas. “She’s the champ, and she can decide who she wants to fight next and when, and I feel like I want to be back to the Octagon in March or April. So if the champ is not going to be ready, if she’s not willing to fight me, I’ll take another fight.”
If Namajunas is unavailable, Jedrzejczyk is ready to accept a rematch with Zhang and give fans a sequel of their riveting 2020 battle. She’s also interested in a second fight with Carla Esparza, whom she knocked out to win the strawweight strap in 2015.
“[Zhang] might be the next one,” she said. “In case Rose is not ready to fight in March or April. I believe she wants to rest because she put on a hell of a performance and it was a pretty tough fight, five rounds. I bet she wants to enjoy her time as the champ, as a human, so we will see.
“[The Esparza rematch] would be an interesting fight,” she added. “We have a good fighting history. I think she’s waiting for the title shot. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. She might get the title shot, she might not get it.
“I would love to fight her. If she wants to get the title shot, I would love to fight her.”
Whoever Jedrzejczyk ends up fighting next, her sceptics will undoubtedly make themselves heard, pointing to her lengthy absence and growing commitments outside the cage as reasons she may lose.
The former champ, however, believes her time away in the sport will make her better than ever.
“I don’t know if you watched The Last Dance, the movie about [Michael] Jordan, but he took two years off and he was doing baseball, and he was back after that,” she said. “I feel like I’m on the same road. I can’t compare myself to Michael Jordan, but I feel happy, and I know I told you this before, but I feel the fire again.
“Physically, mentally, I feel ready to go back to the Octagon, but I know I needed time to be 100 per cent.”
