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Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) strawweight champion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, has stuck her foot in her mouth so many times, I’m surprised referee Herb Dean hasn’t jumped in to wave it off.
That includes her latest interview with Eurobash (via MMA Fighting), where the Polish puncher admitted to passing on newly-crowned 115-pound titleholder Weili Zhang, who according to the ex-champ, was only looking for more money and better exposure.
I guess Dana White wasn’t exaggerating when he said nobody wanted to fight Zhang.
“Magnum” was elevated to a strawweight title fight against Jessica Andrade seemingly by default, but Jedrzejczyk thinks it had more to do with the recently-constructed UFC Performance Institute in China.
“She’s good, but the truth is they offered me Weili Zhang three times before that fight and the thing is, she needed me,” Jedrzejczyk said. “Okay, she’s the champ now so it might look like she never needed me to become someone. Why are they calling me out? Because they know I can bring them to a different level. Maybe they can be lucky and win against former UFC champion, a dominant champion, which I was. Get better money, get better exposure. The thing is, there is a new UFC Performance Institute in China, so they probably needed a good fight and they just gave the title fight to this Chinese chick.”
The decision to grant Zhang the first crack at Andrade was validated by “Magnum’s” first-round finish over “Bate Estaca” in Shenzhen, China, and proved she didn’t needed Jedrzejczyk to generate money and exposure.
And Zhang believes Jedrzejczyk, who dropped three of her last four, is now the one in need.
“You all should ask her why she was calling me out,” Jedrzejczyk continued. “These girls think they can talk when they have the strap, they talk whatever shit they want to talk when you are losing, Look at how many of them wanted to call me out when I lost to Rose, they were like, ‘Now we can beat Joanna because she lost’. When I was a dominant champion, they were trying to get the belt, but nobody could keep the pace with me when they faced me. They can talk whatever they want, I’m too classy and too serious for all that bullshit.”
Jedrzejczyk is scheduled to fight Michelle Waterson at the UFC Tampa event next month on ESPN+.