UFC strawweight champ Zhang Weili said Monday that she’s going to rest before deciding on her next opponent, which isn’t surprising considering the battle she endured Saturday night.
Zhang made her first defense a memorable one as she captured a split-decision win over Joanna Jedrzejczyk in what’s being described as the greatest women’s title fight in UFC history. Their 351 combined significant strikes in the co-main event of UFC 248 in Las Vegas were the third-most thrown in a UFC fight. Zhang was asked on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show if she could foresee a rematch with Jedrzejczyk.
“It’s possible we’ll have the opportunity to fight again,” Zhang said through an interpreter. “Since I won the title [on Aug. 31, 2019] I didn’t have a vacation or a holiday, I was just training all day long, all the time.
“Now I just want to relax and have a vacation and then I can think about who comes next.”
Zhang’s manager Brian Butler said last week that Zhang might be interested in a fight with flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, who appeared later on the show and said she would be open to that matchup.
“I’ll gladly fight her,” Shevchenko said, “and I don’t see any difficulties in this fight.”
Schevchenko thought Jedrzejczyk should have gotten the decision Saturday and she doesn’t see Zhang winning her next title defense. Schevchenko believes Zhang’s next fight will be against Rose Namajunas, who faces Jessica Andrade on April 18 in a battle of ex-champs. Zhang beat Andrade for the belt last August.
As for Zhang, it’s time to rest after a stressful training camp that was uprooted twice — from Beijing to Thailand to Abu Dhabi — because of the coronavirus outbreak. But she said after a week in Las Vegas doing media, she’ll be able to fly home to China.
“It’s much safer now,” she said.
Through her translator, Zhang Weili says she was unable to give her best performance at #UFC248 because she never acclimated to Las Vegas after her extensive travel due to coronavirus concerns (via @arielhelwani) pic.twitter.com/bublcnRe0w
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) March 9, 2020
Zhang hasn’t watched a replay of her fight yet because she said it wasn’t her best performance.
“I only slept six hours total the two days before the fight,” she said. “Normally I sleep 9-10 hours in China.
“Looking back on this trip, it was really tough and tiring, it was hard for me, but I made it. I think it was a great experience for me.”
Zhang said she and Jedrzejczyk had a talk after the fight and the prefight acrimony yielded to mutual respect.
“We had a little talk, and Joanna encouraged me to keep defending,” Zhang said. “I really appreciate that.
“Joanna was such a great, great opponent. She is so tough. She’s not only mentally tough, she’s physical tough. She took a lot of my shots. She’s a warrior.”