Kowalkiewicz aims for title shot with win over Andrade
Karolina Kowalkiewicz: “I do not want to insult Joanna, but she sometimes loses contact with reality.”
UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas beat the belt off Joanna Jedrzejczyk and then successfully defended the title in a rematch. ‘Thug’ Rose has been out with an injury while Jedrzejczyk rebounded with a win over Tecia Torres. Jedrzejczyk declared post win that she was next in line for a title shot.
This is the division’s top 5 contenders:
Champion: Rose Namajunas
1. Joanna Jedrzejczyk
2. Jessica Andrade
3. Claudia Gadelha
4. Karolina Kowalkiewicz
5. Tecia Torres
While it’s true that Jedrzejczyk is the #1 contender, she’s 0-2 to the champ, which means until the division is cleaned out some, the champ is going to fight someone else. An obvious choice is Karolina Kowalkiewicz, who beat Namajunas via Split Decision at UFC 201 on July 30, 2016, in the Fight of the Night.
Kowalkiewicz is on a two-fight win streak, and fights Jessica Andrade at UFC 228 on September 8, 2018. With a win, a title fight makes sense, as Kowalkiewicz argues in a recent interview with the Polish language MMANews.pl.
“I think that this clash will be an eliminator,” said Kowalkiewicz via Google Translate. “Probably the majority of the world seems to agree that it’s an eliminator. I do not want to insult Joanna, but she sometimes loses contact with reality. … So logically, would Rose have to fight for the third time with the player she beat twice? Perhaps this one victory over Tecia will give [Joanna] the opportunity to fight for the belt, but only when Rose first fights with someone else, so JJ will have to wait a long time. … Rose proved twice that she is better than [Joanna] and she will want to face another fighter.”
“I do not want to think about what will happen later; I focus on this fight with Jessica. This fight is an eliminator to fight for the belt, and it seems to me that Rose will fight with the winner of our fight.”
The case against a title shot for Karolina would center on her failed title shot vs. Jedrzejczyk at UFC 205 on November 12, 2016, and her following fight, a submission loss to Claudia Gadelha at UFC 212 on June 3, 2017. However, Gadelha next lost to Andrade in the Fight of the Night at UFC Fight Night 117 on September 23, 2017. So if Kowalkiewicz beats Andrade, MMA math largely shelves that concern. Further, Kowalkiewicz says she wasn’t right vs. Gadelha.
“I really do not like coming back to that fight with Claudia, because I was not myself then,” said Kowalkiewicz. “I like to have a clean head going out to fight, and when I was flying there, my grandfather died who raised me. I just was not myself, my head was elsewhere, I was thinking about other things. This is not an excuse because I am a fighter and I should cut myself off from it, but I am also a very sensitive woman and … this was a dramatic event for me. There is no way to go back, because I was not myself. A lot of people would say that if I lost to Claudia, and Jessica dominated Claudia then I will lose to Andrade. Good, let people say that, it only motivates me more to show them.”
Image courtesy of Rafal Boruch.