Zhang: Coronavirus Travel Prevented Better Performance From Me At UFC 248

Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

Weili Zhang had to travel a long and grueling road to make it to her first-ever title defense at UFC 248 last Sat (March 7, 2020) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

After the coronavirus outbreak spread all over China, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) women’s strawweight champion had to unexpectedly pack her bags in order to safely leave her homeland. Eventually, she and her team were able to leave and fly into Thailand.

After a week training there, Zhang had to once again pack up and take her training camp elsewhere for fear of further spread of the virus, which lead her squad to Abu Dhabi. From there, she eventually made the long trip to “Sin City” to take part in what proved to be one of the best women’s MMA fights ever, defeating Joanna Jedrzejczyk after 25 minutes of back-and-forth striking action.

But had it not been for the constant traveling, Zhang says she would have been even more lethal inside the cage, as she was unable to give it her all come fight night due to the whirlwind of events the weeks prior.

“I didn’t put my best performance on because I haven’t really acclimatized at all here in Vegas. I have been traveling to like three, four different places for this fight,” she said through her translator on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show.

“So I had a tough time acclimatizing to the time zone. I have like three to five hours of sleep when normally I sleep like nine to ten hours in Beijing. But here in Vegas I just couldn’t get a nice sleep,” she added.

“So I didn’t give the best of me, the best performance. That’s why I don’t want to look at the fight yet. I only slept six hours total the two nights before the fight.”

If someone leaves their opponent looking like this after a fight on an off night, it’s scary to think what would’ve happened had she been at 100-percent.

Despite not being able to give it her all, Zhang’s star (as well as Joanna’s) is now shining brighter after the epic title fight that not only earned each fighter an extra $50,000, but put the headlining act to shame.

Not that it was too hard to do.