EXCLUSIVE | Valentina Shevchenko believes it’s “fair” for Jedrzejczyk to get immediate rematch with Namajunas

On November 4, in the first of the three title fights on the stacked UFC 217 bill, Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s strawweight title reign came to a crashing halt as she was knocked out by challenger Rose Namajunas in the first round.

Since then, Jedrzejczyk has been campaigning relentlessly for an immediate rematch, and the chance to reclaim her title. In fact, she even claims she’ll get that rematch.

“I already spoke to the UFC, and my return is set,” Jedrzejczyk told InTheCagePL (translation via FanSided). “My next fight will be for the title belt. I don’t know if Rose is going to want to fight in a month, in January or in February. I’ll spend the next two months in Poland with my family.”

Speaking on the latest episode of BJ Penn Radio, recent UFC women’s bantamweight title challenger Valentina Shevchenko weighed in on the possibility of a rematch between Namajunas and Jedrzejczyk, who she has beaten in the kickboxing ring in the past.

“I think it will be very fair to give them rematch,” Shevchenko said on the show. “I think it will be good fight because Joanna will train much stronger maybe, and she will be more focused on the fight. But I think it will be great fight. But the same, like I said before, it doesn’t change nothing. Rose, she’s different fighter than she was for example, a few years ago. Now she’s ready to be the champion, and I think she will be very good and very good champion for her weight class division.”

At present, Shevchenko is gearing up for a drop to the new UFC women’s flyweight division. Given that Jedrzejczyk has expressed interest in a move to flyweight in the past, it’s possible the pair could meet in this new division somewhere down the road. For the moment, however, Jedrzejczyk seems focused on a rematch with Namajunas.

Do you want to see a rematch between Rose Namajunas and Joanna Jedrzejczyk?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 20/11/2017.