By Dane McGuire
Former UFC women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk hasn’t competed since last year, but now her retirement is on the books with the UFC. She had reportedly been considering a comeback despite announcing her retirement, but it was derailed by a shoulder injury.
Jedrzejczyk retired in June 2022 at UFC 275 after suffering a second-round knockout loss to Zhang Weili in their strawweight title rematch.
‘JJ’ has since exited the USADA testing pool. She told TNT Sports in late 2022:
“It’s still hard. It was a spontaneous decision. But, during fight week I felt that if something (happened) I will retire, and it happened. The craziest thing about my retirement is my last camp was the best camp in my fighting career and I felt so good. I was probably not one of the best, but in the best shape ever,” Jedrzejczyk said.
“Weili Zhang caught me, and I went down. It just happened. But, two weeks ago, I went crazy, man. I was calling my management; I was about to call Dana (White) and Hunter (Campbell) to bring me back. Actually, I had this conversation with my coach, Mike Brown, and Dan Lambert, the owner of ATT. But yeah, it’s hard to like sit, think, like you’ve done so much, your legacies so big. I’ve been this for the last 19 years of my life.”
Her shoulder injury required surgery which nixed the comeback.UFC officials confirmed the news with MMA Fighting August 15. Jedrzejczyk retired as a Hall of Fame member, 16-5 overall, with five title defenses.
She has since been focusing on management.
“(I want to) Protect them because there’s so many rats that are trying to get a piece of them,” Jedrzejczyk told MMA Junkie. “I want to share my knowledge, you know? So many ups and downs in my fighting career and life in general, but I’m the person who learns from every situation in life.
“I just want to share this with the other fighters and, like I said, somehow protect them.”
Immediately following her retirement ‘JJ’ said she intended to learn about the management side of things from Lambert as well as her manager, Jennifer Goldstein of CAA Combat Sports.
Prior to the loss and her retirement Jedrzejczyk had just signed a new long-term contract with the promotion.
“I thought that I was going fight more because before my last fight I signed a new deal with UFC for six fights,” Jedrzejczyk said at the time. “I feel like it was the right decision for that moment. It isn’t easy. I always wanted to retire on my rules…”