Former UFC strawweight champion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, detailed her plans to return to the Octagon in 2022 after nearly two years away from fighting.
Jedrzejczyk spoke with MMA Fighting's Damon Martin on his podcast The Fighter vs. The Writer and discussed her recent inactivity, explaining it primarily has to do with the desire to only compete in big fights at this point in her career.
“So many people are like, ‘Get an easy fight, you’ve been out for a while,” Jedrzejczyk said. “A fight is a fight. A fight is a pleasure. The hard work is so many weeks before. I make the same amount of money. I’m crazy. When I train, when I’m preparing for my fights, I’m crazy. I don’t go easy. So I don’t want to fight easy. I don’t want an easy fight. Because I will be training hard like for the championship fight. So I’ve been prepared to fight big names, No. 1 [contender] or the champion.”
She continued on to say she's hoping to face fellow former UFC champ, Zhang Weili, in a rematch in her Octagon return, but that the 32-year old Chinese star won't be ready to compete until the summertime which is delaying Jedrzejczyk's return to action that much more.
“I heard Zhang Weili may not be back until late July or August,” Jedrzejczyk said. “What they told me was that she was planning on being back to fighting March-April and then May-June. The last thing I heard was July-August. I can wait, and I want to wait, but on the other hand, I don’t want to wait that long. It’s complicated because all the girls [ranked] from 1 to 10 are booked. But like I said, I’m only looking at the big, big, big fights."
According to ESPN's voting panel, the Fight of the Year so far is @joannamma vs. @MmaWeili at #UFC248
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 1, 2020
-- https://t.co/7YrENrtIS7 pic.twitter.com/itEcfatYmI
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