Joanna J?drzejczyk has demanded that she face the winner of the Weili Zhang vs. Rose Namajunas bout, and she could care less about your opinion on the matter. Former UFC strawweight champion Joanna J?drzejczyk has become quite familiar with title fight…
Joanna J?drzejczyk has demanded that she face the winner of the Weili Zhang vs. Rose Namajunas bout, and she could care less about your opinion on the matter. Former UFC strawweight champion Joanna J?drzejczyk has become quite familiar with title fights during her illustrious career in this sport. In fact, since 2015, only two of […]
Joanna Jedrzejczyk wants her belt back. The former UFC strawweight queen has been busy outside of the octagon since her fight of the year performance against Zhang Weili last year. Spending most of the pandemic in her native Poland, Jedrzejczyk has spent the time pursuing other business opportunities. She’s served as a judge on a […]
The former UFC strawweight queen has been busy outside of the octagon since her fight of the year performance against Zhang Weili last year. Spending most of the pandemic in her native Poland, Jedrzejczyk has spent the time pursuing other business opportunities. She’s served as a judge on a Polish dance competition show and is writing her autobiography. Still, her desire to regain what’s she lost is strong. In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Joanna opens up about what’s she has been up to and what she wants next.
“I’m living my best life,” she shared. “With my personal or business problems, we all have it, and I’m very happy. I take everything that’s happening in my life, and I give a lot. I give 100 percent every single day in everything I do, but I did as much as I can. I’m still an athlete because I really want to do it, but I set my priorities. I have different priorities. I don’t want to be part of this crazy rat race because I was there.”
These new endeavors outside of the octagon have not swayed the former champ away from her unfinished business within it. She asked the UFC for the rematch with whoever comes out of UFC 261. “I want to get the winner of this fight,” said Jedrzejczyk.
“I won’t stop. That’s the thing if I was losing fights by knockout or if I was losing the fights on points and the difference was big but it’s not. I always put on a show and the fights are very close so I want to keep on going.”
“I called Mick [Maynard] a few days ago and I just told him ‘You know what? The baddest b*tch on the planet is back’ so book the fight, watch this fight and tell everybody that I’m next,” Jedrzejczyk said.
“I was waiting for this fight. It’s COVID time, so that’s the only reason why the belt was not stripped. Because once a year you have to defend the belt. But we’re having COVID times but when I was the champ, I was defending this belt like crazy.”
Jedrzejczyk knows that some think it’s inappropriate for her to get the next title shot. She lost her last attempt at regaining the belt in her Fight of the Year performance. But she believes that she has done enough to book the fight.
“I know there are so many people who are like ‘you lost, you have to prove it again.’ I proved it in my last fight, putting on f*cking hell of a show,” Jedrzejczyk said. “Giving the closest fight ever. That’s the thing, Fight of the Year, no gender, no weights. It’s the ticket for the next title fight. That’s the thing. I just don’t want to fight for nothing anymore. That’s the thing.
“If I fight, I fight for big trophies and I don’t have to prove it to anybody.”
Jedrzejczyk remains confident that she will win the rematch with either Namajunas or Weili, but didn’t go as far as to predict the winner of the title fight at UFC 261.
“I wish best of luck to both of them and I hope they will bring the strawweight division even higher than I did the last time with Weili Zhang,” she said. “But I feel like every time I step into the octagon, I break another barrier and limits and records. I did that many times with winning the belt, defending the belt and now with putting on such great shows.”
Do you think Joanna Jedrzejczyk deserves the next strawweight title shot?
Weili Zhang is not bothered about the recent comments of Rose Namajunas. Namajunas created a stir recently when she detailed her motivation for her upcoming women’s strawweight title fight with Zhang at UFC 261 on April 24. “I was just kind of reminding myself of my background and everywhere that I come from and my […]
Weili Zhang is not bothered about the recent comments of Rose Namajunas.
“I was just kind of reminding myself of my background and everywhere that I come from and my family and everything like that, and I kind of wanted to educate my training partner [on] the Lithuanian struggle and just the history of it all, so we watched ‘The Other Dream Team’ just to kind of get an overall sentiment of what we fight for. Just after watching that, it was just a huge reminder of like, yeah, it’s better dead than red, you know? I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Weili is red. That’s what she represents. It’s nothing personal against her, but that’s a huge motivating factor of why I fight, and I fight for freedom.
“I’ve got the Christ consciousness, I’ve got Lithuanian blood, and I’ve got the American dream. And all of those things I’m taking with me into the fight.”
The implication, of course, being that Zhang was a supporter of communism since she hails from China even though she hasn’t publicly shown her support.
Namajunas would since double down on her comments stating that she doesn’t regret making them. So what does Zhang make of what she’s had to say?
Not very much according to strength and conditioning coach Ruben Payan Jr.
“Let me tell you the truth, and we’ll make a statement next week cuz the media will be asking,” he said in a recent interview. “To be honest with you we haven’t been paying attention. It’s been like watching it but not feeling it. This is the soap opera that’s happening but we aren’t really engaging in it because we’re just so focused on the fight. It hasn’t even been a topic for the team. I wish there was something more that I could say, but it’s like … non-emotional. There’s really nothing to say if you’re not really emotionally attached to it.
“You’re just kind of watching things happen and you’re watching people talk about it,” he continued. “And you see people get upset about it. And you see the comments but you’re not involved in it. That’s kind of how it feels. Even though some of the comments are directed towards her, there’s so many non-truths to it that it’s like we’re not even going to pay attention to it. That’s kind of how we feel.”
It will be interesting to see what Zhang says when she’s asked about it directly during fight week.
UFC strawweight Rose Namajunas has no regrets about recent controversial remarks she made about strawweight champion Zhang Weili and her native China. It all started when Namajunas spoke with Lithuanian National Radio and Television this past weekend and was asked about her upcoming fight with Weili. In response, Namajunas used the phrase “better dead than red”, alluding […]
UFC strawweight Rose Namajunas has no regrets about recent controversial remarks she made about strawweight champion Zhang Weili and her native China.
The phrase “better dead than red” was used as an anti-communist slogan during the height of the Cold War in the mid-1950s.
Namajunas, who is Lithuanian-American, expanded on her comments in an interview with ESPN earlier this week.
“My opinions are based on my experiences,” Namajunas said during an appearance on “Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show” on ESPN. “You can watch ‘The Other Dream Team’ documentary, and you could get a good idea as to what my family had to go through, the reason I’m in the United States today, the reason that I do mixed martial arts, all of that stuff.”
“The Other Dream Team” is a documentary about the 1992 Lithuanian men’s national basketball team’s struggles under soviet rule, and how they became symbols of the country’s movement towards independence.
“I love Weili. I don’t know her. I know she wants to be friends and all that stuff, and it would be great to get to know her,” Namajunas said.
The two top strawweights are scheduled to fight in the co-main event of UFC 261 on April 24th. Namajunas is coming off of an impressive victory over former strawweight champion Jessica Andrade at UFC 251, while Weili hasn’t fought since defeating Joanna Jedrzejczyk in a slugfest at UFC 248 in March 2020.
Weili hasn’t responded to Namajunas’ recent comments but has said in the past that she hopes the two can be friends going forward.
What do you think about Rose Namajunas’ comments about Zhang Weili and China?
Rose Namajunas is doubling down on her anti-communist rhetoric but is emphasizing that they were not targeted directly at UFC 261 opponent Weili Zhang. Over the weekend, some of Rose Namajunas’ comments made during an interview with Lithuanian National…
Rose Namajunas is doubling down on her anti-communist rhetoric but is emphasizing that they were not targeted directly at UFC 261 opponent Weili Zhang. Over the weekend, some of Rose Namajunas’ comments made during an interview with Lithuanian National Radio and Television made headlines. The former strawweight champion described her upcoming bout against Weili Zhang […]
UFC star Rose Namajunas defended recent anti-communism comments she recently made ahead of her UFC 261 clash with China’s Zhang Weili. Namajunas, whose parents…
UFC star Rose Namajunas defended recent anti-communism comments she recently made ahead of her UFC 261 clash with China’s Zhang Weili. Namajunas, whose parents…
Joanna Jedrzejczyk wants her belt back. The former UFC strawweight queen has been busy outside of the octagon since her fight of the year performance against Zhang Weili last year. Spending most of the pandemic in her native Poland, Jedrzejczyk has spent the time pursuing other business opportunities. She’s served as a judge on a […]
Weili Zhang is not bothered about the recent comments of Rose Namajunas. Namajunas created a stir recently when she detailed her motivation for her upcoming women’s strawweight title fight with Zhang at UFC 261 on April 24. “I was just kind of reminding myself of my background and everywhere that I come from and my […]
UFC strawweight Rose Namajunas has no regrets about recent controversial remarks she made about strawweight champion Zhang Weili and her native China. It all started when Namajunas spoke with Lithuanian National Radio and Television this past weekend and was asked about her upcoming fight with Weili. In response, Namajunas used the phrase “better dead than red”, alluding […]