Joanna Jedrzejczyk Very Confident Heading Into UFC 223, “I’m the owner of this belt”

A fight result doesn’t get quite as shocking as the first of three title changes from November 4th, 2017. UFC 217 marked a historic and incredible night for the UFC and one of those reasons was due to how the then title challenger, Rose Namajunas was able to cut through reigning champion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk with her striking.

No one had ever had as much success against Joanna in such a short amount of time let alone defeat her. Rose was able to score a big early knockdown before finally capping the night off with a big left hook that forced echoing, ‘Thug Rose!’ chants out of the light heavyweight champion, Daniel Cormier on commentary.

As for the former champion, she has made it very public that she had horrible weight cutting issues leading up to the fight and that she was not 100% going in. She believed an immediate rematch would be necessary but as she told FloCombat recently, she just wanted to fight for what she believed was hers:

“It was important to get the title shot, but if Rose was going to fight in February or March and she was facing someone else [and lost] as long as I could go for the title. I want to get what belongs to me. I don’t want to just rematch her. I want the title. It doesn’t matter who keeps the belt. I’m the owner of this belt and I’ve owned this belt for two years and nine months.

What I can say is it’s going to be bigger than my whole fight career. Only one night. Only one fight. It’s going to be bigger than fourteen years of my fighting career. Mark my words. I’m very confident. The queen is back.”

Joanna is now set to challenge for the title for the first time since she won it at UFC 185 against the inaugural champion, Carla Esparza. Her and Rose Namajunas will square off in the co-main event of UFC 223 on April 7th.

Who takes it this time around?

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/26/2018