UFC women’s strawweight champion Rose Namajunas will defend her belt against the woman she won it from.
In a rematch of their UFC 217 bout from last November, Thug Rose is set to fight Joanna Jedrzejczyk in the co-main event of UFC 223 on April 7th, 2018 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Namajunas upset Jedrzejczyk in their first encounter, knocking out the erstwhile unbeaten Polish champion in the very first round.
Altogether, the 25-year old Namajunas has won five of her last six fights on her way to becoming world champion. Thug Rose owns wins over Tecia Torres, Michelle Waterson, Angela Hilla and Paige Van Zant.
Jedrzejczyk, meanwhile, suffered her first loss at the hands of Namajunas.
The 30-year old former kickboxing champion was one win away from tying Ronda Rousey’s record for most successful title defenses when she ran into Thug Rose. J
oana won the belt with a vicious stoppage of Carla Esparza before dominantly defending it against the likes of Jessica Penne, Valerie Letourneau, Claudia Gadelha, Karolina Kowalkiewicz and Jessica Andrade. She hopes to bring back the belt to Poland where she says it truly belongs.
The former champion Jedrzejczyk is the slight favorite here (-140 at Bovada), while the new champion Namajunas is the underdog at +110.
The lines are close but it’s still surprising that Namajunas isn’t the favorite here considering how one sided their first fight was. Some people say that Rose caught Joanna on a bad night at UFC 217 but the way Namajunas dominated Jedrzejczyk for three full minutes was more than just pure luck.
Jedrzejczyk is a former world champion kickboxer and that’s why she uses her kicks and knees more than anybody in the business. On her feet she is a great striker, with good technique, high efficiency and superb accuracy. In all her fights, she’s always had the advantage in the stand-up.
However, when she faced Namajunas, it seemed like she didn’t have any answers for Namajunas attack. Thug Rose isn’t known to be a knockout puncher and her only knockout victory was her win over Jedrzejczyk.
That leaves us with an intriguing question of what happened at UFC 217? Did Joanna simply have a bad night? Or is Rose her kryptonite?
On the ground, Namajunas is a scary foe. She has five submission wins under her belt and she is deadly if she can gain position on the canvass.
Namajunas loves to go for the rear naked choke, her signature move. But while she may not be as skilled on her feet as Jedrzejczyk is, she can hold her own and land some meaningful punches. That’s the story of UFC 217.
Jedrzejczyk is the better striker here by a mile. But given how tough and gritty Namajunas is, she isn’t just going to stop her on her tracks.
The big question here is if Joana can take Rose’s punches. She has been able to take the punches of all her previous opponents but maybe not Rose’s.
Joana can’t take this fight to the ground or she’ll end up getting submitted. On her feet she will thrive but Namajunas didn’t seem to be worried about Joanna’s power which she probably could take anyway. The same can’t be said otherwise as Namajunas may be the harder puncher than Jedrzejczyk. If Joanna can’t eat her punches, the results won’t be any different.
We’re picking Rose Namajunas to win the bout and defend her belt.
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