Joanna Jedrzejczyk reveals she didn’t suffer broken foot in Michelle Waterson fight, targeting title shot next

Former UFC strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk had a really good weekend with a dominant performance over Michelle Waterson on Saturday night and then received some welcome news on Sunday.

Following her five-round unanimous decision victory, Jedrzejczyk was forced to walk on crutches due to a badly swollen foot that definitely appeared to be broken. Despite the injury, she continued to throw her kicks throughout the fight as she secured a lopsided win and potentially put herself back in line for the next shot at the title.

In the aftermath of her fight, Jedrzejczyk just assumed that she would receive the diagnosis of a broken foot when getting x-rays the next day and that’s when she got some surprising results from her physician.

“It’s good news,” Jedrzejczyk told MMA Fighting on Monday while confirming she didn’t suffer a broken foot after all. “Both feet are very swollen but it’s good. I’m happy it’s not broken. I don’t need surgery. I will be back faster so I can fight faster.”

Along with friends and members of her management team that accompanied her to the doctor, Jedrzejczyk was admittedly shocked when the results came back showing no broken bones in either foot.

There is still some immense swelling that will take a few days to reduce but overall the former strawweight queen will be back on her feet in no time.

“I was really surprised,” Jedrzejczyk said. “All the exams they did before when they touched the foot, they said oh it’s broken, it’s fractured but in the end when after I was at the [emergency room] yesterday morning, they came and told me that it was not broken. I was like really?

“We were all really surprised. But it was good news. It was a good message. I need to rest, get better and I can be back to training sooner than later.”

As debilitating as the injury probably should have been during the fight, Jedrzejczyk refused to take away one of her primary weapons, which did a ton of damage to Waterson over the course of 25 minutes.

“After the fourth round, I decided to not kick anymore but in the fifth I did,” Jedrzejczyk said. “I’m a warrior. I was like if it’s broken, what worse can happen? It’s going to be broken in three or four pieces, they’re going to put it back together in one piece.”

Now that she knows she didn’t suffer a broken foot, Jedrzejczyk won’t have to take as much time off before hopefully booking her next fight.

Jedrzejczyk expects that will come at some point in 2020 against reigning strawweight champion Weili Zhang, who just captured the belt in August with a stunning first-round knockout against Jessica Andrade.

“I wouldn’t have signed this agreement for the fight with Michelle Waterson if my next fight wasn’t going to be for the belt. My next is going to be for the belt,” Jedrzejczyk said. “If they make me wait, I will wait but I sent a strong message with this fight.”

It had been a tumultuous two-year span in Jedrzejczyk’s career after she lost the strawweight title to Rose Namajunas in Nov. 2017, came up just short in the rematch and eventually moved up to 125 pounds for a flyweight title fight against Valentina Shevchenko.

Now with both her mind and body in a good place, Jedrzejczyk is ready to climb back to the top of the mountain where she ruled the 115-pound weight class for more than two years.

“I think I sent a strong message to all the strawweights that Joanna is back from the edge and they don’t know what to expect,” Jedrzejczyk said. “I fought for three rounds not with a broken foot but a very swollen foot, it was painful but I did my best. I feel like you could see I can adjust. You can have the perfect plan through the first punch but then you have to take the fight second by second.

“I sent a strong message. They don’t know what to expect.”