Joanna Jedrzejczyk was ‘mad’ at Rose Namajunas’ inactivity, says strawweight is next

For the former 115-pound UFC champion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, she has gone through a wild last couple of fights since the back end of 2017.

Having amassed a record five title defenses as the UFC strawweight champ,
Jedrzejczyk looked nearly unbeatable going into her title bout with Rose Namajunas. But the time was now for ‘Thug’ to come through as the underdog.

Namajunas would dethrone Jedrzejczyk at UFC 217 before defending against her in their immediate rematch at UFC 223 in April 2018. She has not fought since.

However, Namajunas is now set to attempt to make her second career title defense when she travels to Brazil for UFC 237 when she faces Jessica Andrade on May 11.

This was good news to hear for Jedrzejczyk as she began to get frustrated with her former opponent.

“I was getting mad at Rose,” Jedrzejczyk told the media on Wednesday in Melbourne, Australia (via Submission Radio). “Of course she’s the champ, but I was a busy champion. You cannot wait. You must defend your belt once in a year and I’m very happy I heard about this fight is happening. Definitely, I want to go to Brazil and watch this fight. 99 percent I will go to Brazil to watch this fight live.

“This division is the lightest in the UFC but it’s definitely one of the strongest. I don’t know who is next. I want to fight for the belt. I might have one fight before but I want to fight for a belt.”

Despite Namajunas’ inactivity since the second Jedrzejczyk encounter, that hasn’t been the case for Jedrzejczyk.

Following the first two losses of her MMA career, Jedrzejczyk would rebound against Tecia Torres who she would earn a unanimous decision over at UFC on Fox 30.

After that, Jedrzejczyk got a crack at flyweight gold opposite old Muay Thai rival Valentina Shevchenko. Jedrzejczyk would come up short once again but she believes she knows why.

“I’m proud of myself, I did good,” Jedrzejczyk said. “She didn’t smash my face like last opponent, but definitely, if I want to compete at 125 I need to put muscle on and build the power. I couldn’t do that with Valentina Shevchenko because I was and am still planning to go [back] to 115.”

The former champ has since declined a March fight offer and just been resting up before she gets back to training on Monday.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 2/6/2019