Joanna Jedrzejczyk knows what it means to be a UFC champion, having defended the strawweight belt five times during her two-and-a-half-year reign over the division.
The Polish fighter said she had watched current title-holder Zhang Weili closely – and she doesn’t believe the Chinese fighter has what it takes to hold on to the crown.
“I was there. I made it,” said Jedrzejczyk, during UFC 248 Media Day. “She’s going to have her first defence. When you are fighting for the best organisation in the world, the top five are the best fighters from all over the world so she’s going to have to learn. She’s the champ, I’m impressed … but she hasn’t faced someone like me.”
The fourth-ranked Jedrzejczyk (16-3) takes on Zhang (20-1) for the strawweight title as the co-headline event at UFC 248 on Saturday. On Thursday, the Polish fighter tried to work her way under her opponent’s skin.
As the pair met for the official face-offs, Jedrzejczyk let fly with a constant stream of threats and warnings, and a promise that “I will make you quit”.
Zhang kept her cool – telling her opponent, loudly, to “Shut up” – and looked more bemused than affected by the attention. Whether it has upset her focus for her first title defence will be played out on Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena.
Jedrzejczyk was once seen as an unstoppable force in the UFC’s strawweight division – “a monster”, she says – as she clocked up a 14-fight unbeaten streak. She was then knocked out in three minutes by American Rose “Thug” Namajunas, and “I still carry the scar with me”.
After a brief and unsuccessful shot at flyweight – where she lost a title shot to Valentina “Bullet” Shevchenko – Jedrzejczyk is back in the division she feels is her own. She even revealed on Thursday she had focused on some positive effects that title loss brought to her career, and her life, including the fact that it seemed to win her a whole new generation of fans.
“After I lost people saw the human in me,” Jedrzejczyk said. “They haven’t seen only the monster. They saw that even the best can fall.
“Two years later and I am here, I am the challenger. I am back again and I will do my best to win this fight on Saturday. I am getting better every day.
“I was such a dominant champion and if people want to doubt me I show them the numbers because numbers never lie. I was afraid of losing but when it happened my coach told me keep your head up, raise your chin. Your legacy cannot be defined by one fight. There are still so many great stories to tell in my life.”
Jedrzejczyk said she had also turned her attention to social media since she lost her crown back in 2017, an effort that now has her clocking up 1.6 million followers on Instagram.
“People thought that I am a violent person. No, it’s business, it’s fighting,” she said. “I go there and I fight and outside I help many kids with cancer, with charities. I do many things outside the Octagon. I am not fake, I am real.”
Jedrzejczyk believes her height and reach advantage will allow her to dictate terms inside the Octagon, and she tried to play that to her advantage at Thursday’s face-offs, wearing high-heels that forced Zhang to stand on her tiptoes so the fighters could attempt to see eye to eye.
The Polish fighter believes she can win moving Zhang around “using my kicks, being myself”.
“It’s going to the best UFC strawweight fight in history,” she said. “Zhang Weili is such a talent and a powerful champion. She’s in the championship league but I have been there many times and I am a warrior when I step in there. We are going to blow up the arena on Saturday.”
