Joanna Jedrzejczyk believes Ronda Rousey also went through a bad weight cut for the Holly Holm fight in 2015.
Last week, Joanna Jedrzejczyk revealed the grueling weight cut she went through for her title defense against Rose Namajunas at UFC 217 last November. The former UFC strawweight champion specifically stated that she experienced numb legs after cutting 15 pounds in 14 hours.
During her recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Jedrzejczyk said she is now thinking about speaking with fellow former champion Ronda Rousey, whom she believed also went through the same experience ahead of the Holly Holm fight at UFC 193 in 2015.
“I always wanted to talk to Ronda about how she felt the night before that night that she lost to Holly Holm,” Jedrzejczyk told Ariel Helwani (via MMA Fighting). “I was afraid to ask her before because I was winning.”
“Actually, we have one agent (in common) and I spoke to him and told him that my legs went numb and that I felt a bit groggy or something like this. The funny thing is Ronda felt the same way; she had a terrible weight cut before Holly Holm.”
Jedrzejczyk went on to explain how she felt both her and Rousey may have suffered a “frozen brain,” which led to both their losses and subsequently be dethroned as champions of their respective weight divisions.
She also feels the need to educate people about such occurrences in the fight game.
“The funny thing is, people don’t believe that your brain can be frozen, but the weight cut can change the game,” she said. “It can and that’s the worse thing. It can (happen) and this is what happened to me and Ronda. We paid the price for the weight cuts and that’s the thing.”
“They didn’t go through the weight cut, so they don’t understand,” Jedrzejczyk said of their critics. “They don’t understand what we had to go through, but one day I will explain to all of them.”
Jedrzejczyk will be taking on current champion Rose Namajunas in a rematch that will co-headline UFC 223 on April 7th in Brooklyn.