Born in Olsztyn, Poland, Joanna was comparatively late to the martial arts, picking up Muay Thai kickboxing during her teenage years. However, it became pretty evident that she had natural ability. By the time she was 23, she was already a double world champion in Muay Thai, and a world champion in kickboxing. She would add three further world Muay Thai titles by the time she took up MMA professionally, underlining her striking pedigree.
It's worth putting Joanna's rise in the context of the rapidly growing women's mixed martial arts divisions in the UFC. Thanks largely to the popularity and appeal of Ronda Rousey at bantamweight, Dana White's frosty approach to womens' MMA had thawed, with a series of The Ultimate Fighter designed to create a new strawweight division and name a new champion. While the series came too soon for the Polish striker, it would not take her too long to make her mark.
Her breakthrough moment would come against perhaps her greatest rival to date - the Brazilian Claudia Gadelha. Having come through her UFC debut relatively unscathed against Juliana Lima, the Pole was pushed to the limit in her bout against Gadelha, emerging a narrow victor by split decision. While she has since defended her belt successfully against the Brazilian in a far more dominant performance, this was certainly the fight that gave her the greatest difficulty.
After a challenge, the greatest fighters go back to the drawing board to hone their skills, and Jedrzejczyk certainly did that. Undoubtedly one of the most decorated strikers in the UFC, she has continued to work to ensure that she is applying her experience in Muay Thai and kickboxing to better her MMA striking. And this improvement has been continuous and stark.
Just look at her dissection of Jessica Penne in her first defence. For the length of the fight, she landed crisp, clean combinations, playing with her opponent until she became a bloody mess and had no defence to her striking. However, it is perhaps her striking defence that has become most noticeable in recent bouts. Other than a brief knockdown in her second fight against Gadelha, and a more significant period of pressure against Karolina Kowalkiewicz in her last fight at MSG, her UFC career has been a masterclass of defensive fighting.
Nothing says this more than her most recent title defence against Jessica Andrade at UFC 211. The ex-bantamweight was identified as a vicious power striker with a significant advantage in the strength and grappling stakes. However, when it came to fight night, the champion simply shut that down. Working behind her jab effectively, she outlanded the Brazilian by 230 to 94 - the highest significant strike differential in UFC title history. It's probably worth mentioning that she also holds the rest of the top four, as well as the top two in most significant strikes landed!
Such has been her success in recent years, she enters into UFC 217 looking to tie Ronda Rousey's record of six successive title defences in womens' MMA. As I mentioned earlier, there is that veil of invincibility around Joanna Champion at present, but as we have seen with Rousey, that can be taken away in an instant. In fact, you could argue it's simply a case of when and not if. Look at the greatest martial artists of all time - GSP, Hughes, Liddell, Ortiz, Couture, Silva - all of which looked invincible at some point, but all came a cropper at some point.
As the women's strawweight division continues to gain talent and awareness, the quality of challenger will increase accordingly - but is November 4 the day that unbeaten record goes? Let me know your thoughts on this, and the success of Joanna Champion either in the comments or @TheWeighInMMA on Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment