UFC 205: Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz preview

Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Karolina Kowalkiewicz will square off for the UFC Straw-weight Championship. Both women hail from Poland and have tremendous standup, however their standup styles are somewhat different. Joanna has HEAVY hands and her elbows are just on another level. Seriously, she might have the best elbows in MMA. Karolina brings a brilliant counter-punching style and has good kicks as well. On paper it looks like a great fight….not so fast though.

Joanna Champion is built to go out and hunt finishes. She will throw combos that include sharp elbows and heavy hands. In her last outing, a victory over Claudia Gadelha, her standup was beyond good. She landed hellacious shots on Claudia and it’s only the super-human chin and heart that allowed Claudia to survive the onslaught. Joanna is just a different kind of fighter than any other woman at 115 pounds. She’s an absolute savage, and in the best way imaginable. I think she will out strike Karolina, and land hard shots early and often. This could be her most amazing performance on the sport’s biggest stage.

I’m not completely ruling out Karolina, however, she doesn’t always disengage from exchanges well. She takes shots while trying to get out of range, and her offense, though potent is just not as hard or ferocious as Joanna’s and as a result, I expect her to struggle early on. If her chin is able to withstand some early trouble, she could make things interesting in the late rounds, I just am not sure she’ll get there.

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Both girls are talented and this is a definite showcase fight in the Straw-weight Division. I will be watching this one on the edge of my seat, as long as it lasts. I am thinking that Joanna just will land too often, and too heavily. Good fight, as I said on paper, but in reality I just think Joanna will chop Karolina down, and get an early finish. This is the only fight on the card I think could end in the first round, but I’ll give Karolina the benefit of the doubt and go with a TKO by Joanna in the 2nd Round.