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Bruises, swelling, and hematomas were the extent of the damage suffered during the wild strawweight title fight between Weili Zhang and Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248.
Mixed martial arts is one of the most thrilling sports you can watch, but it can also be quite disturbing. The physical toll fighting takes on a human’s body can often be ignored, but there was no way to miss it during the five round war between strawweight champ Zhang Weili and challenger Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
Both fighters took some serious lumps, with Zhang leaving the fight with her eye nearly bruised shut and mouth swollen from multiple direct kicks to the teeth. Joanna Jedrzejczyk fared even worse, suffering a massive hematoma on her forehead that only grew as the fight went on and Zhang hammered away at it. Later in the fight she ate a big shot to the nose and the commentator’s booth speculated on whether or not it had just been broken.
Round after round they came out and tenderized each other, slamming knees into stomachs, feet into thighs, and the head trauma! So much head trauma! So it’s with great pleasure and relief that I can report to everyone that both Zhang and Jedrzejczyk were discharged from the hospital today with no serious injuries.
ESPN’s Ariel Helwani carried news of Jedrzejczyk’s discharge late on fight night, sharing this pic of the former strawweight queen.
Joanna J?drzejczyk was just discharged from the hospital, according to her team. No significant injuries, they said. Here she is leaving moments ago. @gldlx pic.twitter.com/y58z4EjMx5
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 8, 2020
He then followed it up early Sunday morning with news of Zhang from her manager Brian Butler. She suffered “no significant injuries … other than swelling in her feet and ankles.”
And while a fight that close and of that caliber already has fans hoping to see it run back, UFC president Dana White made it clear that both warriors were going to get a nice break to recover and heal up.
”Did you see what those two girls looked like after that fight?” White asked when an immediate rematch was broached at the UFC 248 post-fight press conference. “Man, they’re both in the hospital right now, they did not go to a press conference, they did not talk to the press. They both went straight to the hospital. They need to go home, take time, heal up, and everything else before I even mention the fight with either one of them.”
And while we have our doubts the UFC will throw Weili and Joanna in the cage together again immediately, there’s no question in our minds the two will fight again. This could be the beginning of one of the great rivalries of the sport, fueled not by smack (although there were indeed mind games being played before this first one) but pure competition and a desire to be proven the very best in the world.