Jessica Andrade Believes She’ll Submit ‘Skinny Neck’ Jedrzejczyk
Joanna Jedrzejczyk‘s next title challenger has no shortage of confidence heading into her bout against the undefeated Polish knockout artist.
The No. 3-ranked UFC strawweight Jessica Andrade will try her hand at attempting to hand ‘Joanna Champion’ her first career mixed martial arts (MMA) loss. The pair will throw down in the co-main event of UFC 211 on pay-per-view (PPV) this weekend (Sat. May 13, 2017) from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.
During a recent interview with FOX Sports, Andrade explained why she believes she is going to de-throne the second ever 115-pound champion (quotes via FOX Sports):
“Watching the last fight, especially, we saw that Karolina [Kowalkiewicz] was a girl that didn’t back away from Joanna when she was getting pressured, which was something new. Pretty much everybody that fought her before, once Joanna put pressure they would walk back. We noticed that she didn’t do as well with other people that would back away from her,” Andrade said.
“We are very much aware of everything Joanna does well and we are even more aware of what I do well and how those two match. If Claudia [Gadelha] was able to knock her down with a jab, once my straight [punch] lands or one of my hooks, I know there’s going to be a party in Brazil.”
The former 135-pound competitor has proven that she can finish fights anywhere, owning five of her 21 career wins via knockout and seven by submission. Andrade puts a tremendous amount of pressure on her opponents inside the Octagon – something she doesn’t think Jedrzejczyk has experienced before:
“The way that I put pressure on in fights is something Joanna has never had to deal with. She’s not used to someone just bullying her or just grabbing her and with pressure all the time,” Andrade said. “This is something we’re expecting her to have problems with because she is so technical, she is someone who comes from a really strong technical background. We know this from history that people who are too technical, they sometimes lose themselves with an opponent who are not as technical or not as predictable as them. This is something we are really hoping will make a difference. We know that it’s going to make a difference cause I’ll be honest, it’s really difficult to prepare against someone like me.
“The way that I fight, it’s not easy for my opponent to just sit there and think. Once I start getting my punches going, they aren’t going to have time to think.”
While Andrade admits that she isn’t on par with the champion when it comes to the technicality in striking, however, the Brazilian believes her power will be the key to overwhelming ‘JJ’ en-route to securing the UFC title:
“The thing with Joanna, she does have a lot of punching power but it comes a lot from speed and technique. We are very much aware of that. I’m not as technical as her, probably won’t ever be because that’s not the game that works for me,” Andrade said. “I know my strength. I know there’s probably no one at strawweight that is as strong as I am. There’s probably no other strawweight that has the power and strength that I have and that’s going to show in the fight.
“I don’t think she can even prepare for someone my size and my strength in her camp. It’s not something very easy to prepare for.”
Andrade is so confident in her striking power that she is predicting a knockout finish somewhere within the first 15 minutes of the bout:
“Since we got the fight, even before, I’ve seen the fight playing out in many ways. I think I could knock her out, I could finish her. She’s got that long skinny neck that I could grab onto and get a submission,” Andrade described. “Honestly, the way I see it, I’m going to get a knock out before the third round.
“At some point in those 15 minutes, my hand is going to connect and I’m not going to let her get back up. I’m not going to let her recover. I’m predicting a knockout by the third round.”
