UFC: Joanna Jedrzejczyk warns Carla Esparza ‘history likes to make a circle … soon I will be champ’
- Jedrzejczyk ‘surprised’ by Esparza’s win at UFC 274, but vows to take strawweight title from the American for a second time
- ‘Carla, I thought she was going to look better. She looked the same as seven years ago when we fought for the belt,’ Polish star says
Joanna Jedrzejczyk has warned Carla Esparza she is coming to take the UFC strawweight title from her for a second time, as “history likes to make a circle”.
Esparza regained the belt with a controversial split decision win over Rose Namajunas in last weekend’s UFC 274 co-main event, after beating the same woman to become the division’s inaugural champ in December 2014.
“The Cookie Monster” was soon dethroned in her first title defence, however, suffering a TKO defeat by Jedrzejczyk, and the 34-year-old Polish fighter feels history is going to repeat itself again.
“Oh man, I was very surprised,” Jedrzejczyk said of Esparza’s victory, during a virtual press conference to promote her rematch with Zhang Weili at UFC 275 in Singapore next month.
“Sometimes you have to do much more to beat the champion. But you know I can speak for myself, I can’t speak for Rose. I don’t know what happened. But when you feel the first round wasn’t good and the second, you have to do something.
“Sometimes you have to risk to get the victory, even paying a big price. At the end of the fight I thought Rose got it, but no, and here we go.
