UFC president Dana White has responded to Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s request for increased compensation ahead of her potential return to the octagon.
Recently, the former UFC strawweight champion revealed her reasons for not competing since her classic fight against Zhang Weili at UFC 248 in March 2020. Jedrzejczyk said she wanted a “bigger piece of the cake” during an interview on The MMA Hour, echoing the same sentiment from January.
Jedrzejczyk, one of two Polish UFC champions in the promotion’s history, is the record holder for most title defenses in the strawweight division at five. After dropping her title to Rose Namajunas at UFC 217 in 2017, she would lose the immediate rematch and go on to trade wins and losses since.
Jedrzejczyk seems ready to make a return to the cage, but wants the money and fight to be big, specifically a title fight. However, White doesn’t seem to agree with her requests.
“Joanna ate a lot of cake when she was champion,” White told MMA Fighting following the ceremonial weigh-ins for UFC 267 in Abu Dhabi. “She was the champ, she did very well, deservedly. She’s a little savage and I love that kid. She was telling us she only wants to fight title fights, but, you know, that’s not really how it works.”
One of Jedrzejczyk’s peers, Marina Rodriguez, who is rapidly ascending the ladder at strawweight, recently commented on the former champ’s place in the official UFC rankings, given her inactivity. After defeating Mackenzie Dern at UFC Fight Night 194 in Las Vegas, Rodriguez said that Jedrzjecyk should be removed from the rankings completely due to inactivity and also believes she wouldn’t take a fight against her.
A recent update in the promotional rankings would see the removal of Jedrzejczyk due to inactivity, but MMA Junkie confirmed she remains on the UFC’s roster and will be placed back in the rankings when she returns to action.
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