Joanna Jędrzejczyk is pleased with the growth of the sport since she was strawweight champion.
While she was technically the second champion at 115lb in the UFC, beating inaugural Carla Esparza in 2015 to get the belt, she has the longest title reign in the division by a long shot. This has led to many fans considering her the best the division has ever seen. Towards the end of her title reign, and especially after she lost the title, strawweight became arguably the most exciting women’s division in the UFC.
The most recent title fight at 115lb saw the woman that snatched the throne from Jędrzejczyk, Rose Namajunas, defend the title that she reclaimed in a rematch against the woman that she took it back from, Weili Zhang.
Speaking in a recent interview with South China Morning Post, the Boogeywoman said that she was entertained by the scrap and happy with the way the division has evolved since her time on top.
“It was a good fight. The strawweight division is just evolving. Maybe it’s the lightest division in the UFC, but these girls are on fire. I’m very happy to see that… These girls hit hard, you know. It was good to see that in the strawweight division, I love it… It just motivates me to work harder than before,” Jędrzejczyk said.
When asked about how she felt, seeing this evolution within the division during her time away from competition, Joanna Jędrzejczyk was not too bothered by it all. In fact, it was the opposite, as she stated her pleasure with seeing the women’s side of MMA continue to blossom.
“I feel super happy. I feel super happy because it’s been a while, you know… I just feel happy for these girls. I always say that Ronda Rousey brought women’s MMA into the next level. But I feel like we are all breaking barriers, and we just build this. I’m very happy to see this and I’m very happy to see more and more women’s main events. I’m just super happy. Ronda was the first one, after that I had a few main event shows, and I’m super happy to see just more and more shows (headlined by women),” Jędrzejczyk said.
While it is nice to see Joanna Jędrzejczyk showing respect to the women who have continued to grow the sport, hopefully, she will be able to get back in the mix at 115lb soon and continue being a part of the division’s continued growth moving forward.
Watch her full interview in the video below:
