Joanna Jedrzejczyk, former UFC women’s strawweight champion and one of the pioneers of women’s MMA, believes she still has one more fight left in her.
I was not prepared to say goodbye: Joanna Jedrzejczyk
Jedrzejczyk announced the end of her mixed martial arts career after her second consecutive loss to Weili Zhang at UFC 275 back in June, which marked her fifth defeat in her last seven fights. Her first loss to Zhang at UFC 248 in 2020 March, not only won the ‘Fight of the Year’ award, but also is regarded as the greatest women’s fight of all time. Despite retiring from the sport, the future Hall of Famer said that she would continue to work with the promotion.
Since then, the Polish fighter has been seen attending several UFC events, and has expressed her desire to get into management. Nonetheless, the thought of coming back to the Octagon hasn’t left her.
In July, Jedrzejczyk hinted that while she is at peace with the decision to hang up her gloves, she might make a comeback to the cage just once, and fight for the “Female BMF” belt, while being vague about her possible opponent.
“Maybe I could come back for the female ‘BMF’ title,” Jedrzejczyk told MMA Fighting at that time, “Look, I’m retired. I am retired, but in the future, maybe I would fight for the ‘BFMF’ [belt]. I don’t know [who I would fight], there’s not that many ‘BFMF,’ real O.G. female fighters left.”
And at the UFC 281 media day today, she once again brought up the possibility of returning for one more fight, as Jedrzejczyk revealed that she was probably not ready to say goodbye to the sport and call it a career.
“Sometimes, I do feel I should give one more fight,” Jedrzejczyk said, “I should do the last dance for fans because we had no time. I was not prepared, and they were not prepared to say goodbye. So, like I said, it was the best camp in my fighting career. The last camp was the best camp, and I was in such good shape.”
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