Joanna Jedrzejczyk looks out into the crowd before stepping foot inside of the octagon at UFC 248.
Joanna Jedrzejczyk says she doesn’t need the title again to cement her legacy
Former UFC strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk had a long title reign until Rose Namajunas captured the title from her back at UFC 217 and although Jedrzejczyk has come up short in her recent attempts to reclaim her title, her most recent effort had some believing she won the title back.
At UFC 248 in March, Jedrzejczyk took current defending champion Weili Zhang to the final bell in their strawweight title fight that many are calling one of the greatest fights in history, specifically in the strawweight division. Her last three attempts to re-gain her title have not gone Jedrzejczyk’s way but she believes throughout her career, she’s proven more than enough. In an interview with Aaron Bronsteter of TSN, Jedrzejczyk discussed why she wants the belt back, but she doesn’t need it to cement her legacy.
Had a great chat with @joannamma today.
Here she discusses whether she feels winning back the strawweight title is needed to cement her legacy.
Full interview: https://t.co/qSRtu0ykBO pic.twitter.com/qzTDLwyt6d
— Aaron Bronsteter (@aaronbronsteter) April 21, 2020
“I don’t have to, you know? I feel that I shown it already, I showed that in my last fight. I want to win the belt, it’s my big dream, I want to have this belt again, but it felt like even with the belt I carried myself as a champ. I feel like I don’t have to but at the same time, I wanna, but I don’t have to prove anything to people.”
As Jedrzejczyk sees it, winning the belt means more for proving it to herself rather than proving it to others and while she’s not always proud of herself, the former champion admitted she was proud of her performance at UFC 248 in March.
“I’m like ‘Why, you have six belts at home from back in the day, why do you need this belt to have this belt physically?’ Really it’s hard, I’m not proud of myself very often, but I’m very proud of myself of the performance I put on in March in Vegas. I’m very hard on myself, but I’m very proud.”
Although she doesn’t need the belt back, Jedrzejczyk said her competitive personality is what keeps pushing her to try and obtain the strawweight title once again.
“I’m a competitor and I love to challenge myself every single day. In business, in my regular life, or in the sports life, I like to challenge myself. Fighting the best people in the world, it’s my challenge so I stay motivated, I stay very focused, I stay very disciplined, every single day.”
There’s no denying the resume of Joanna Jedrzejczyk and as she sees it, winning the title again isn’t something she needs to do, but she certainly wants to do it because that’s the competitor in her.
