The debate as to whether Joanna Jedrzejczyk deserves an immediate rematch after losing her strawweight title to Rose Namajunas in round one at UFC 217 has been in full swing since the new champion was crowned at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night.
The Polish star was on course to equal Ronda Rousey’s record for female title defenses before “Thug Rose” dropped her with a left hook and appeared to make her tap out from ground-and-pound. Jedrzejczyk has since claimed that she did not tap out to grounded shots.
One field of thought suggests Jedrzejczyk’s domination of the division for so long warrants an immediate rematch; on the other hand, the fact that the loss was so emphatic makes it hard to give her an immediate second chance against Namajunas.
Speaking on this week’s episode of The MMA Hour, Jedrzejczyk told Ariel Helwani that she will reclaim her strawweight title by May 2018.
“In May, I will be champion again,” Jedrzejczyk said. “Mark my words. May, I’m coming back. It doesn’t matter if Rose is going to hold the belt or not — I will be back in May and mark my words.”
Despite the loss, Jedrzejczyk still thinks that she is best fighter at 115 pounds.
“I’m the greatest and for myself, I’m still the champion,” she said. “This is just another part in the movie. She can take the belt, but I am still the champion, you know? I’m coming back. I’m coming back really soon.
“I’m not going to cry, I want to talk to people about that. There is something about me, there is something in my body and nobody have it.”
The former champion also claimed that she should receive an immediate rematch based on what she has done for Dana White and his promotion.
“I believe, for what I have done for Dana and the UFC, I deserve the rematch. I will see. I saw Dana on the way back from the press conference,” she told Ariel Helwani.
“He hugged me, I wanted to leave him, but he was like, ‘Please, stop, I love you so much, we love you and nothing change. We love you even more for this and your comeback is going to be bigger than all of this.’
“For myself, I turned the page and I felt like, ‘your comeback is going to be bigger than all of these records and bigger than this.’”
