Jessica Andrade is one scary strawweight.
The pressure was on Jessica Andrade and Karolina Kowalkiewicz to produce in UFC 228’s co-main event. There was a star-making performance in the strawweight division earlier in the night.
Tatiana Suarez appeared to have secured the next crack at Rose Namajunas with her annihilation of former champion Carla Esparza. Suarez even had a great call out of ‘Thug’ in her victory speech. However, as impressive as Suarez was in that TKO victory, the women’s strawweight highlight of the night would come in the co-main event.
One of the judges displayed truly remarkable incompetence #UFC228 https://t.co/YZ0p8oXyVk
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) September 9, 2018
Andrade came out swinging with bad intentions from the get-go. She overwhelmed Kowalkiewicz with crushing haymakers, pushing the Polish fighter back to the fence with sheer brute force.
Kowalkiewicz managed to recover, but only long enough to be tagged with a monstrous coup de grace. The Brazilian knocked her out cold with a ferocious right hand that landed square on the jaw. The fight was over at 1:58 of the very first round. Kowalkiewicz didn’t know what hit her.
https://twitter.com/AhmarSKhan/status/1038633124027084800
The result sees Andrade improve to 19-6 (10-4 UFC). She is now riding a three-fight win streak following her title fight loss to Joanna Jedrzejczyk. With the help of an interpreter, the 26-year-old called for another crack at the belt in her victory speech.
“I’m ready, I’m here, I’m ready to take the title.”
“This is the work of my coach and my team. All props to them, if I do my job here it’s because of what they’ve done for me.”
Meanwhile, Kowalkiewicz (12-3, 5-3 UFC), who has a win over current champion Rose Namajunas, had a two-fight win streak snapped.
