Joanna Jedrzejczyk ready for Jessica Andrade at UFC 211 - ‘I can submit her and I can knock her out’

Undefeated UFC women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk will look to continue her epic dominance at 115 pounds when she puts her title on the line opposite heavy-handed finisher Jessica Andrade at UFC 211 on May 13 live on pay-per-view (PPV) from Dallas, Texas. As Jedrzejczyk attempts to defend her championship for an astonishing fifth-straight time, she’ll be doing so against a familiar foe.

“I know Jessica for a while,” said Jedrzejczyk earlier this week during a UFC 211 media lunch. “We’ve been kind of friends. Friends may be a bit too much — we were colleagues. Is that a good word? We used to train together sometimes, we used to do some crazy things when I was at the fights when she fought or when I fought. We used to have good times, many good times.”

As most MMA fanatics know, training doesn’t always translate to the cage. Fighters train alongside each other all the time and the result that transpires when they actually fight is often different than expected. While Jedrzejczyk acknowledged this unpredictable correlation, she feels confident heading into UFC 211.

“That I can submit her and I can knock her out,” said Jedrzejczyk when asked what she learned from training alongside the Brazilian. “But the fight is different. It was in the past. Jessica is a very dangerous opponent. She drops from 125. She’s very strong in the strawweight division.”

Despite her incredible success since entering the promotion back in 2014, Jedrzejczyk remains an underrated champion in today’s MMA. If she’s able to strike her way past Andrade’s devastating power at UFC 211, the Polish queen may very well follow in the footsteps of Demetrious Johnson and rule the smaller weight classes.

UFC 211 will be headlined by a heavyweight title fight between current champion Stipe Miocic and former titleholder Junior dos Santos.

For more UFC 211 fight card news click here.