Friday, May 01, 2015

Joanna Jedrzejczyk to defend UFC Strawweight Championship at UFC Berlin

The UFC is going to Berlin, Germany for the first time on June 20 at the O2 World Arena. This will air on UFC Fight Pass. The main event was announced as Swedish Light Heavyweight Alexander Gustafsson vs Brazilian Glover Teixeira. The UFC announced this morning that Gustafsson is injured and the new main event will have Joanna Jedrzejczyk make her first defense of the UFC Women's Strawweight Championship against former Invicta Atomweight Champion Jessica Penne. This will be the first title fight to headline a Fight Pass show. The reason for this is the UFC just signed a new TV deal in Germany and they want to make a big splash. Joanna may not be as big of a star as Gustafsson yet but she knows how to sell a fight. She's also a great fighter and throws harder punches than most guys. Jessica is similar to Carla Esparza as both are wrestlers. So she will have the same problem as Carla trying to take Joanna down and keep her there. Joanna has tremendous takedown defense and Jessica's takedowns must be successful or Joanna will make her pay. Jessica was supposed to fight Juliana Lima May 30 in Brazil. Jessica is ranked 3rd so I have no problem with pulling her from that fight for this. Jessica's last fight was a split decision win over Randa Markos on the TUF Finale last fall. Of course we don't know who else this title shot was offered to. Jessica is highly ranked so she was probably their first choice. The other day Claudia Gadelha and her manager said they were pushing for the first title shot. See, she still thinks she beat Joanna though the judges decided otherwise. I'm pretty sure the UFC wants her to beat another ranked fighter first. The UFC hasn't named a new opponent for Juliana. It depends on what they want. I think Jessica would have beaten her easily so maybe they don't want a competitive match.

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