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I guess former UFC strawweight champion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, is a graduate of the Anthony Pettis School of Anatomy, where everything gets broken during a fight but then turns out to not be broken when actual doctors and X-rays are involved.
That’s good news for UFC fans, as well as the rest of the strawweight contenders, as Jedrzejczyk can keep the 115-pound assembly line moving and fight current division titleholder, Weili Zhang, at some point in early 2020.
“It’s good news,” Jedrzejczyk told MMA Fighting. “Both feet are very swollen but it’s good. I’m happy it’s not broken. I don’t need surgery. I will be back faster so I can fight faster. All the exams they did before when they touched the foot, they said oh it’s broken, it’s fractured but in the end when after I was at the [emergency room] yesterday morning, they came and told me that it was not broken. I was like really? We were all really surprised. But it was good news.”
Jedrzejczyk damaged her foot in a five-round unanimous decision victory over Michelle Waterson in the UFC Tampa main event last weekend on ESPN+. It was a much-needed win for the part-time flyweight, who was just 1-3 coming into her “Karate Hottie” bout.
Fighters have certainly been known to compete with broken bones.
I would argue former middleweight champion Rich Franklin is the leader in that category. “Ace” shattered his hand against David Loiseau at UFC 58 and just kept punching until it went numb. He also broke his arm in a knockout win over Chuck Liddell at UFC 115 but used it anyway, despite the audible clicking of bone-on-bone during every attack.
For much more on Jedrzejczyk’s win over Waterson click here.