After Rose Namajunas dethroned Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 217 last November, “JJ” made the media rounds offering up one excuse after another as to why she lost her title via first-round knockout (see it).
Aside from being a fluke win, according to Jedrzejczyk, her terrible weight cut had a lot to do with her tepid performance, as the team she used to work with to monitor her cut down to 115 pounds didn’t do its part.
Nevertheless, Joanna will have a chance to right her wrongs and get her title back when she rematches “Thug” Rose at the upcoming UFC 223 pay-per-view (PPV) event on April 7, 2018 in Brooklyn, New York. She just better hope Namajunas doesn’t get lucky once again.
“It could be true,” Rose told MMA Weekly in regards to Joanna’s reasons for the loss. “I can only control myself and I know I am training as hard as I can and when I do my best, I am the best. So regardless if she’s on point or not, hopefully she is the best version of herself and hopefully I get lucky again.”
To be clear, Rose doesn’t believe luck had anything to do with her title-winning performance.
“No, I don’t believe it was luck. Some people believe in luck and I myself believe in destiny and I believe that was God’s plan, I believe god was speaking to me and I believe he speaks through events. And that’s just my own belief. She can believe whatever she wants, but I believe it was my destiny,” concluded the Strawweight champion.
With back-to-back wins over the former dominant champion, Rose — just like Max Holloway did against Jose Aldo — can prove once and for all that luck had nothing to do with her first victory, and put “JJ” in her rear-view mirror.
Perhaps for good.