UFC straw-weight contender Karolina Kowalkiewicz is clear on what she wants in the near future: a championship rematch.
After suffering a unanimous decision loss to champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in a triple main-even fight at UFC 205 at Madison Square Garden in New York City Saturday night, Kowalkiewicz called for a rematch with her fellow Polish start in their homeland in 2017.
“I want a rematch in Poland,” Kowalkiewicz said. “Next time, I will beat her. You will see.”
In order to pull out the victory, Jedrzejczyk overcame an early knockdown. Kowalkiewicz landed a right hand flush to the face that stunned the champion, but Jedrzejczyk came back strong and controlled the tempo of the fight.
“I was so close,” Kowalkiewicz said. “I know it.
“I’m a little bit sad and angry because I was so close to winning this fight, but I feel good and it was a good fight. It’s a very valuable experience, and next time, I’ll perform better and will be better prepared.”
According to FightMetric, Jedrzejczyk landed 181 of her 371 strike attempts, and 171 of those were considered significant. Also, she landed her lone takedown attempt of the fight.
Conversely, Kowalkiewicz landed only 63 of her 234 attempts, but 50 were significant and she inflicted more damage to the champion despite throwing and landing with less volume than Jedrzejczyk.
In three of the rounds, Kowalkiewicz landed less than 10 total strikes. Jedrzejczyk connected on at least 28 strikes in each of the five five-minute rounds to successfully defend her championship for the fourth consecutive time since winning the belt with a TKO victory over Carla Esparza on March 14, 2015.
Jedrzejczyk improved to 13-0 in her professional MMA career with the win over Kowalkiewicz and is 7-0 in the UFC.
Kowalkiewicz fell to 10-1 with the loss.
“I’ll be back stronger and I can fight with anybody,” Kowalkiewicz said. “I can fight with Joanna in Poland. I can fight with everybody in my division.”
