Current Strawweight Champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk has been dominating the strawweight division since it was introduced back in the fall of 2014 and by March of 2015 at UFC 185 she would become the second champion of the division when she defeated Carla Esparza via TKO in round 2. Since then she has remained undefeated with a record of 14-0 with five successful title defenses under her belt putting her one under the current record held by former women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey (six).
Now that Jedrzejczyk will defend her title against number four ranked contender Rose Namajunas at UFC 217 in New York City, New York fans around the world will be tuning in to see if she will tie Rousey’s record with the hopes of going on to break the current record and prove to everyone why she is the most dominant female athlete and maybe even athlete overall in the world.
To decide how great her chances are at tying Rousey’s record we must look further into what both Jedrzejczyk and Namajunas posses in their techniques and go from there.
Jedrzejczyk contains a combination of boxing, kickboxing, and Muay Thai which make her a well-rounded striker with speed and cardio to where she can score more points while maintaining a well-paced game plan thus explaining more why she is such a dominant champion.
Namajunas, on the other hand, contains a combination of striking, taekwondo, karate, jiu-jitsu, and wrestling making her a well-rounded defensive fighter along with efficient grappling to help wear down her opponents while looking for the submission win.
So this matchup is going to be a striker versus and grappler like a few of Jedrzejczyk’s past fights and based on how she has handled those kinds of opponents the possibility of her tying Rousey’s record looks highly insight.
But let’s not forget how well of a grappler Namajunas is as she sets up her takedowns with a fury of strikes before she finds the opening to bring her opponents down to the ground where she will just unleash a beating upon them to tear them apart until she knows where the finish is.
With that in mind, it now begins to appear as if Namajunas could pull off a big upset thus ending Jedrzejczyk’s reign as champion and hopes to break Rousey’s record.
However, Jedrzejczyk has magnificent takedown defense so bringing her to the ground will be no easy task for Namajunas and since her striking is not up to the level of Jedrzejczyk the only way Namajunas could pull off the upset is to find a way to bring Jedrzejczyk to the ground in round one or early in round two before she loses too much of her energy and can no longer find a way to bring Jedrzejczyk down.
Jedrzejczyk now looks like she will tie Rousey’s record, but this is mixed martial arts and fans have seen many big upsets to know anything can happen and they can only sit back and watch this fight go down to see what is to come.
