Zhang Weili vs Joanna Jędrzejczyk | Breaking Barriers

I generally don’t rewatch fights unless I’m researching a story. I watched this one the next morning, mere hours after it ended. I dragged my wife to the couch to watch it with me, and she was just as amazed. This was mixed martial arts fought at the elite level, but with the visceral drama that only a good ol’ fashioned brawl can produce.

It was a movie playing out in real life, in real time, and it didn’t matter what gender the fighters were. If you were a fight fan, you loved this fight. And while I’m supposed to be objective, I couldn’t help telling Joanna the next time we spoke that it was one of the best I had ever seen, regardless of gender or sport.

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Actually, that was objective because it was true, and you can’t tell me or anyone else otherwise.

On that phone call, Jedrzejczyk was as gracious as always, and you could tell she appreciated the sentiment. But then she told me that what she and Zhang did was their job.

“When Joanna was still the champion, I watched her fights when I was still fighting domestically, and I set my mind on fighting with her and taking the belt from her,” she said. “But now it’s the other way around. She’s trying to take the belt from me. And I’ve always thought that we’d meet in a fight. I think she’s an opponent who deserves to be respected.”

But…

“This championship belt is past tense for her,” said Zhang. “She should live with that.”

Jedrzejczyk was undeterred. And she wasn’t showing up to be competitive. She was coming to take her belt back.

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“I don't have to prove anything to anybody,” she said. “It's not like I have to do this, it's not that I must do this. I want to do this. I want to be the champ. After I win the belt next Saturday, it will mean much more than all of my victories. This one victory will be sweeter than all the ones in the 17 years of my fighting career. I'm more than ready.”

She was ready. So was Zhang. And what followed was something special. The words I wrote that not were hardly sufficient to capture what happened in the Octagon. But I tried.

Both fighters were busy to start, but a minute in, Jedrzejczyk landed a hard right hand upstairs and her combinations at close range had the former champ smiling and in the lead. Zhang began to find her rhythm midway through the frame, though, and she was throwing with power every time, clearly getting Jedrzejczyk’s attention.

Resuming their high-volume striking battle in round two, Jedrzejczyk was mixing things up nicely, and in the second minute, the two locked up against the fence, taking turns in control, with Zhang landing elbows and Jedrzejczyk responding with knees. With a little over two minutes left, Zhang rattled Jedrzejczyk with a right hand, forcing the Poland native to reset. By the end of the round, the crowd was roaring at the fast-paced action, but Zhang’s eye was rapidly swelling. 

Zhang came out fast for round three and got in some hard shots before Jedrzejczyk settled back in and continued unleashing combinations. And once Jedrzejczyk switched to southpaw, she had more success. With two minutes left, Zhang locked up with Jedrzejczyk briefly, and once they broke, it was Zhang roaring back, raising a welt on the challenger’s head in the process. But Jedrzejczyk finished the round strong, making it another nightmare for the judges to score.

The high-level action continued in round four, with neither fighter backing down and each taking turns rocking the other. And while Zhang was in the championship rounds for the first time, she was still swinging for the fences, but it was Jedrzejczyk who was clearly the fresher of the two. With two minutes left, Zhang landed a hard shot to the forehead, but Jedrzejczyk kept moving forward, landing an elbow before the two locked up against the fence. Jedrzejczyk glanced at the clock in the final 30 seconds, but that didn’t stop her from bringing the heat. 

Both fighters showed the wears of battle on their face, but there would be no let-up once the final round began, and the exchanges were as ferocious in the fifth as they were in the first. A left hook by Zhang briefly rocked Jedrzejczyk in the second minute, and the champion surged forward. But then it was Jedrzejczyk’s turn, and she scored with several hard blows. With a little over two minutes left, Jedrzejczyk clinched to grab a well-deserved second’s rest, but then it was back to work and both fighters were determined to leave nothing left in the tank. And they didn’t, Jedrzejczyk landing a spinning backfist and Zhang responding with a punch of her own just before the horn ending the leading candidate for 2020 Fight of the Year.