Joanna Jedrzejczyk Says Recent Struggles Were Due To Personal Issues

Former UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk will get a chance to reclaim the gold when she faces Weili Zhang this March at UFC 248.

The former women’s strawweight champion has had a rough run since losing her title to Rose Namajunas at UFC 217 and Jedrzejczyk blames some personal issues for the skid.

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“Life of a single [woman],” Jedrzejczyk said on UFC Unfiltered (via Alexander K. Lee of MMA Fighting). “People in Poland know more, but people in the states and worldwide, they don’t know much about my private life. The last two years were pretty difficult for me. It was a rough time, and I feel like 2019 is a special year, so I can’t wait for 2020. I broke up with my fiance, and we broke up before my first fight with Rose Namajunas, and this terrible weight cut happened, and I broke up again. This year I found out that my [previous Polish] manager messed up my money, and then I found out that my fiance was cheating on me. That girl called me; I think that she was afraid that I was going to beat her up so badly, but I was like, ‘No, I’m kidding.’ I just want to show to people and tell people that there’s always something going on in our lives. It doesn’t matter who you are. If your private life is not going in the right direction, you’re not going to be successful in the sport, or in the business.”

Despite losing three of her last five under the UFC banner, it should be noted that all of those defeats did come in championship bouts.

Even though Jedrzejczyk went through some tough times in recent years, it hasn’t stopped her from looking forward to what is coming in 2020.

“This year was amazing, and I cannot wait for that coming 2020. Now I feel free. I feel me, I feel Joanna again. I’m more smart, I’m more experienced. Maybe shitty things happened in my life, but it has to happen somehow. I’m happy. I know what life is about now. When I turned 30, I thought I knew a lot and I had experienced a lot. I was broken in my life, so dedicated to the sport, losing my mind into the sport, working so hard. But that’s the difference – I’m happy now,” says Jedrzejczyk.

UFC 248 takes place on Saturday, March 7 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with no main event announced at this time. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.

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