Joanna Jedrzejczyk Planning Flyweight Return But Wants To Become Strawweight Champ First

Joanna Jedrzejczyk believes she will eventually return to flyweight — however, her goal for now is to become the strawweight champion once again.

Jedrzejczyk is the longest-reigning strawweight champion in UFC history but recently suffered a skid, having lost her title to Rose Namajunas in 2017. She would get outpointed in the rematch before getting back to winning ways against Tecia Torres. However, she would then lose to Valentina Shevchenko for the vacant flyweight title.

The former champion returned to her weight class last month when she outpointed Michelle Waterson in their UFC Tampa headliner. There were initial scares about her missing weight, but in the end, it turned out to be no problem for Jedrzejczyk:

“I’m a professional – I didn’t want to screw the show,” Jedrzejczyk told MMA Fighting. “The thing is, I just let the UFC know that my weight went up for no reason, because I was super light in the middle of all this. I got some help from the UFC Performance Institute – big shout out to Clint [Wattenburg], who took care of my weight cutting and nutrition for the last two weeks before the fight.

“I got good support. I got the right kind food from them. It makes it so much easier for a fighter’s life. I thought of the weight cut because we needed to save this card. I need to fight, so I was thinking of a catchweight, but everything ended up good. I was not even close to missing weight.”

Jedrzejczyk has had trouble with the weight cut in the past as well which is why many have called for her to permanently move up to 125 pounds. It’s something she plans on doing in the future but she wants to reclaim UFC strawweight gold first:

“Yes of course [I’ll return to flyweight], but right now we’re at strawweight, and I want to be the champ one more time my life,” Jedrzejczyk added. “I want to be strawweight champ again.

“The weight cut went smooth and easy, and I’m very excited to step into the Octagon with Weili Zhang. I’m super excited about that.”

Do you think Jedrzejczyk will become a champion again?