Weili Zhang KO’s Joanna Jedrzejczyk with spinning back fist at UFC 275
The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us tonight, June 11, 2022, for UFC 275, going down live from the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore.
The event is headlined by UFC light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira (33-7), who aims to defend his title for the first time tonight against former Rizin light heavyweight champion Jiri Prochazka (28-3-1).
It is also co-headlined by a championship affair, this one between UFC women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko (22-3), who looks to make the seventh-straight defense of her crown tonight opposing Taila Santos (19-1).
Our feature fight of the night came in the women’s strawweight division between a pair of former champions, and two absolute legends in Weili Zhang and Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
The main thing that jumps off the page in this one, it’s a three-round rematch, whereas their first encounter was five rounds. Also, Jedrzejczyk hasn’t fought since that first fight just over two years ago, while Zhang has gone 0-2 since then, both defeats coming to Rose Namajunas.
Actually, both lost their title, and their immediate rematches with Namajunas.
That’s a topic for another day, however, continue reading to see how this epic strawweight rematch went down:
Official Result: Weili Zhang def. Joanna Jedrzejczyk via KO (spinning back fist) at 2:28 of round two
Jedrzejczyk opens up the bout throwing leg kicks, though it takes her a couple tries to start landing them. However, after just the third, she takes Zhang off her feet with one. Zhang begins countering the leg kicks with hard right hands, and secures a beautiful high crotch takedown toward the midway point of the round.
Jedrzejczyk immediately begins taking an absurd amount of damage from the punches and elbows of Zhang, and it looks like the fight could be stopped at any moment. But, she’s able to weather the storm, get back to her feet eventually, and stun Zhang at the end of the round with a nasty overhand.
Jedrzejczyk comes out pressing the action to start the second, throwing heavy punches, landing some, and eating some in return. This became a dangerous gameplan however, as she runs straight into a spinning back fist, KO’ing her on the spot.
Joanna Jedrzejczyk retires after the fight. To the former multi-time champion, thank you for an absolutely legendary career.
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