Carla Esparza Battles Joanna Jedrzejczk For The Belt In UFC 185 Co-Main

The past week or so, the UFC 185 pay-per-view (PPV) event on March 14 from American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas, has begun to fill up with some interesting fights.

First news broke that Anthony Pettis would make a quick turnaround to face Rafael dos Anjos for the title in the main event. That was followed by the surprising news that former welterweight champion Johny Hendricks, who was thought to be headed for a trilogy-sealing rematch with bitter rival Robbie Lawler, would instead face No. 6-ranked Matt Brown in his hometown.

And tonight (Wed., January 14, 2014) UFC 185 has continued to fill up with elite fights, as UFC Tonight ‘s Ariel Helwani revealed that women’s strawweight champion Carla Esparza would face Joanna Jedrzejczk in the card’s co-main event:

“The co-main event guys, UFC officials have just informed me, it will be Carla Esparza defending her women’s strawweight title against Joanna Jedrzejczyk, the Polish striker who has looked very good in the UFC thus far, that fight will be the co-main event at UFC 185 in Dallas.”

Esparza recently won the inaugural UFC women’s strawweight title by submitting fan favorite Rose Namajunas in the finals at The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 20 Finale last December. She’ll get her first title defense against a tough, undefeated opponent in Jedrzejczyk, who earned her title shot from a very controversial decision win over Claudia Gadelha at UFC on FOX 13 the night after Esparza won her belt.

Another high-profile women’s strawweight was also announced, as Esparza’s close TUF friend and Invicta veteran Felice Herrig will face off against rising prospect Paige VanZant at April 15’s UFC on FOX 15, which features a pivotal middleweight main event between Lyoto Machida and Luke Rockhold.