It’s an unfortunate inevitability of life that everything we grow to love will end eventually.
For a lot of fans of the fight game, this deep adoration extends as far as the athletes at the zenith of the sport, the super heroes that proved to be the protagonists in so many of their stories, fighters like Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
The Polish powerhouse exploded onto the world’s biggest MMA stage by racking up six-straight wins in the UFC and securing the women’s strawweight title in the process. She provided us with one of the greatest sequels in women’s MMA history with her two closely fought wins over Claudia Gadelha and now she is scheduled to take on her compatriot Karolina Kowalkiewicz on the historic UFC 205 card in Madison Square Garden this weekend.
Although she has no plans to retire after her next fight, and she doesn’t envisage hanging her 4 oz gloves up anytime soon, she was mentioning that ‘r’ word a worrying amount while speaking to MMA Junkie recently.
“When (I retire) I’m going to be the perfect wife or perfect mother. I want to be the same, (giving) 100 percent. I know I’m not retiring in two months or beginning of the next year because then I will want to come back and have a fight with someone who is important. My goal is to make my dreams come true, my goals come true, and be undefeated. Fight for the next few fights and then see what’s going to happen. That’s my goal.”
The undisputed champion has aspirations outside of MMA. She has already thought about life after fighting and when that day finally comes, she’s ready to enter the next chapter of her life.
“We cannot think about just a single fight. We have to think about the future. I want to be a wife, and I want to be a mother for my kids. I want to be an athlete for the next few years. I want to be a healthy person in the future. We cannot think just about now. We must stay healthy. There is a way to cut weight very easy and feel great. Before I broke my hand twice ,and it was probably because of the wrong weight cut. Last time I felt amazing.”
“It’s going to be difficult to retire undefeated because MMA is a difficult sport, but every fight someone must win, and someone must lose the fight. I’m trying to be focused, calm, humble. I’m trying to be hard on myself, challenge myself and learn new stuff every day. I want to make my dreams into a life.”
Well, let’s just hope she continues her devastating form for the rest of her career as a mixed martial artist.
