There’s an interesting little subplot brewing around UFC 195.
The primary plot point of the UFC’s first event of 2016, of course, is one of betrayal.
We were originally told the fight card scheduled for Jan. 2 would host Ronda Rousey’s third meeting with Miesha Tate. Last week, however, the fight company decided to go back on that decision and book Rousey against undefeated former boxing champion Holly Holm instead.
It was the right move, but that didn’t soften the blow for Team Tate, which reportedly found out she’d been dropped at the same moment the rest of us did—when Rousey announced it to the world during an appearance on Good Morning America.
But while the dominant story of this event is all about hard feelings, the secondary narrative could be one of great opportunity.
Right now, it is believed UFC 195’s co-main event will feature strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk defending her title in a rematch against Claudia Gadelha.
If it happens, it’ll be the first major pay-per-view event in the organization’s history to feature two women’s fights as headliners. It also could turn out to be the perfect showcase for Jedrzejczyk, who has quietly been making her name among hardcore fans—even if we still can’t pronounce it exactly right yet:
Don’t worry, not even the pros know how to handle that unwieldy string of eight consonants, two vowels and one “Y.” In March, Jedrzejczyk suggested a quick fix, telling MMAFighting.com’s Marc Raimondi, “Soon, they’re gonna call me Joanna Champion.”
Good enough for us, though sticklers for the details should note that her real name is actually not that hard to say, so long as our uneducated American tongues don’t try to sound like native Polish speakers. Just aim for some variation of “Yed-jay-chick” or “Yend-dray-trick” and call it good.
Remember, anybody who corrects you is just being a jerk.
Regardless, the 28-year-old Jedrzejczyk is the surprise breakout star of the UFC’s fledgling 115-pound class so far.
Since debuting as a complete unknown in July 2014, she’s seized the spotlight we once thought might be reserved for Rose Namajunas. She has jetted to 4-0 in the Octagon and upset Carla Esparza at UFC 185 five months ago to become the promotion’s second strawweight champion.
Jedrzejczyk’s strike-first attack has been a pleasing revelation for this newest weight class. You might not imagine the 115-pound women’s division being a place of great physical power, but she’s notched stoppages in back-to-back Octagon appearances and in five of her 10 career wins.
Her drubbing of Esparza was truly something to behold. Though 5Dimes (h/t Odds Shark) listed her as a slight underdog, Jedrzejczyk easily shucked off Esparza’s takedown attempts and brutalized her en route to a second-round TKO finish.
It was a shocking performance. It would’ve been tempting to also call it a star-making turn for the new champion, if this latest opportunity hadn’t just come along to dwarf it.
All eyes will be on the MGM Grand Garden Arena on the first Saturday night of the new year to watch Rousey take on Holm. It could turn out to be a situation where fans tune in to watch MMA’s biggest star do her thing and end up falling in love with Jedrzejczyk’s skills along the way.
Because let’s face it, the strawweight champ doesn’t exactly fit the mold the UFC has seemed to want to promote in its female stars to date. She doesn’t look like a movie star, she doesn’t show up on the red carpet decked out in designer evening gowns, she hasn’t posed for Maxim magazine.
But Jedrzejczyk has a different, arguably cooler kind of charisma.
She’s an unabashed sneakerhead and her Instagram selfies are likelier to be of the ballcap-and-shades variety than stills from her latest fashion shoot—though there are starting to be more of those, too. She rides around her eastern European hometown on a custom cruiser bicycle and the best day of her UFC title reign so far seemed to be the one when Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta sent her a box of free shoes.
Jedrzejczyk possesses an infectious, borderline kitschy charm. If Rousey is MMA’s Hollywood fashion plate, Jedrzejczyk seems more like the UFC women’s champion you’d want to go to Disneyland with.
Then she shows up at official pre-fight weigh-ins looking like a tiny demon who wants to crawl inside your eyeballs and eat your soul:
So, yeah, that works.
So far, the only thing she’s lacked is exposure—and maybe a quality foil who might become her nemesis.
This Gadelha fight should fit the bill on both counts.
When the two fought in December 2014, the result was a split-decision win for Jedrzejczyk. The fight was close enough, though, to have some observers wondering if Gadelha should’ve gotten the nod.
In the aftermath, the 26-year-old Brazilian doubled down on her top-contender status by defeating former World Series of Fighting champ Jessica Aguilar at UFC 190. At the moment, she stands at 13-1 and is eager to get back at Jedrzejczyk for putting the only blemish on her professional record.
“Dana White make my title shot,” Gadelha said in the cage after her win over Aguilar (h/t Fox Sports Arizona’s Damon Martin). “I am the best strawweight in the world and I’m going to prove that.”
It is not a reach to say this will be the most anticipated 115-pound title fight in UFC history—after all, there have only been four of them. It’ll also be a chance for Jedrzejczyk to make her case in front of a vastly bigger audience than she’s ever enjoyed before.
So long as she can keep Gadelha at bay—and maybe with a handy pronunciation guide front and center—there’s no telling how high she might fly.
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