Tonight, all eyes will be on UFC 273. However, some news broke late last night that should have fight fans very excited. ESPN’s Marc Raimondi reported last night that former strawweight champions Zhang Weili (21-3) and Joanna Jedrzejczyk (16-4) have agreed to their rematch.
The fight will take place at UFC 275 in June which takes place in Singapore. The first time these two fought was back at UFC 248 in March of 2020. It was the last PPV event before the pandemic shut things down briefly.
Jedrzejczyk and Weili went to war in a brutal back-and-forth fight. In the end, the judges were split on the decision. Weili won the decision and retained her UFC strawweight title.
Since that fight, Weili has fought twice against Rose Namajunas. Like Jedrzejczyk, Weili has suffered the same fait against Namajunas. At UFC 261, Weili lost her title when she was knocked out with a head kick.
The UFC decided to run things back last November and the two had a very close fight. In the end, two of the judges gave the fight to Namajunas and she won the split decision leaving Weili in a similar spot as Jedrzejczyk.
UFC’s Jedrzejczyk Returns
After that brutal fight at UFC 248, Jedrzejczyk decided to take some time away from the sport. The former strawweight champion was pondering whether or not she still wanted to fight. There were whispers of her retirement, however, she has decided to fight on.
Jedrzejczyk was a perfect 14-0 professionally when she defended her title against Rose Namajunas for the first time back in 2017. However, since then, she’s gone 2-4 in her last six UFC apperances.
Granted, all four losses came in title fights so it’s not like she’s lost to lesser competition. Her only two non-title fights she’s won going away. This is a huge fight for both of these ladies as they look to prove that they deserve another crack at Rose Namajunas.
Both are 0-2 against the champ, but given the lack of strong contenders, whoever wins at UFC 275 is going to be in an excellent spot. I can’t wait for this rematch and I wouldn’t be shocked if these two put on another fight of the year candidate.