Joanna Jedrzejczyk

Joanna Jedrzejczyk looks out into the crowd before stepping foot inside of the octagon at UFC 248.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk vows to dethrone Carla Esparza again to reclaim strawweight title: ‘History likes to make a circle’

Joanna Jedrzejczyk wasn’t impressed with Carla Esparza’s win over Rose Namajunas to become the strawweight champion again.

Esparza and Namajunas were rematching at UFC 274 in a very intriguing matchup but the fight did not live up to expectations. Neither wanted to engage that much and at the end of the 25 minutes, no one was certain who won but it was Esparza winning by split decision.

According to Jedrzejczyk, she wasn’t impressed at all and didn’t expect the fight to play out like that at all.

“I don’t know what happened, but when you feel – that first round wasn’t good. The second wasn’t, and sometimes you have to do something to get the victory. Even paying a big price. But I don’t know what happened,” Jedrzejczyk said on a media call. “Til the end of the fight I thought Rose got it, but no. Like Carla, I really thought she was going to look better. I was like, ‘This girl is going to look better. She has so many win streak.’ But for me, she looked the same as when we fought for the belt seven years ago in Dallas. And history likes to make a circle. And soon (I’m) to be the champ.”

Joanna Jedrzejczyk is set to return to the Octagon at UFC 275 on June 11 in Singapore as she rematches Weili Zhang. Should she get her hand raised, she says she will earn the title shot and knows she will beat Esparza again to win the title again.

“Before I accept the fight with Weili Zhang, I knew that I was going to fight for the belt,” Jedrzejczyk said. “After the first fight with Weili Zhang, I knew that I was going to be the next one in line. Sometimes it takes time and other girls have to fight for the belt as well and I Just wanted to be back. Here we go, we have a big fight. Fighting Weili Zhang for the second time is a big motivation for the me because I can be better every single day.”
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Cole Shelton
Cole Shelton covers MMA for BJPenn.com, MMANews, and MyMMANews.com while also being the lead MMA odds writer for Sports Betting Dime