Joanna Jedrzejczyk Admits Andrade Deserves Title Shot

Joanna Jedrzejczyk began lobbying for a trilogy fight against Rose Namajunas the moment UFC 223 concluded. Jedrzejczyk loss her rematch to Namajunas via unanimous decision, yet maintained that the “numbers don’t lie,” and that she was the rightful winner. She also believed that with a win over Tecia Torres, that would be enough to earn a third crack at defeating Namajunas and regaining her strawweight championship. But after a dominant performance by Jessica Andrade at UFC 228, which saw Andrade earn a walk-off 1st round knockout over former title challenger Karolina Kowalkiewicz, not even the headstrong Jedrzejczyk can deny that Andrade deserves the next shot at Rose Namajunas.

“It’s not mine,” Jedrzejczyk said of the next title shot against Rose Namajunas during a media scrum backstage at UFC Fight Night 136. “This fight is going to happen. I bet that Jessica Andrade is the next challenger for the title in the 115 division…and great performance last week, and she’s the next one and line.”

As someone who has shared the Octagon with both competitors in three championship fights and a total of 11 rounds, Joanna Jedrzejczyk is perhaps the most qualified to assess how a fight between the two will go, but she refrained from offering a direct prediction:

“Anything can happen, but we saw that Andrade is a gifted fighter with the power, so she’s very powerful,” Jedrzejczyk said. “But people don’t know how to fight her. If Rose will do her homework and if she watches my fight with Jessica Andrade, she can be successful in this fight. But Andrade, she’s a very dangerous fighter. You must have a good game plan for the fight against Jessica.”