Dana White would prefer Joanna Jedrzejczyk head back to strawweight

Dana White and Joanna Jedrzejczyk might not end up on the same page when it comes to Jedrzejczyk’s weight class moving forward.

White, the UFC president, said Saturday night at the UFC 231 post-fight press conference that he’d prefer Jedrzejczyk head back to strawweight. Jedrzejczyk lost to Valentina Shevchenko by unanimous decision in a fight for the vacant UFC women’s flyweight title in Toronto.

“I love her, she’s such a great fighter and such a good person,” White said. “I actually consider her a friend. I want her to take some time off, go spend some time with her family and then we’ll get together and talk about it. But I’d like to see her stay at [115 pounds]. “

Jedrzejczyk, 31, is the best strawweight in UFC history. She held the belt in the division from 2015 to 2017, with five successful defenses. The Poland native dropped the belt to Rose Namajunas and then lost the rematch to Namajunas earlier this year before beating Tecia Torres at 115 at UFC on FOX 30 in July. Namajunas remains champion.

Jedrzejczyk (15-3) said after the loss in her UFC flyweight debut Saturday night that she’d like to head back down to the division she once ruled again, just one more time. With a caveat — “only title shot,” she said.

“I must do this for myself and put dot on ‘i,” Jedrjzejczyk said. “I will drop one more time to the strawweight division. But I’m not getting younger, I’m getting older. And I’ve been in this business for 15 years, so I want to take care of my body.

“This camp I realized how it can impact your body, your brain and your performance being on such a strict diet for so many weeks. Or the weight cut. Definitely, I want to protect myself, protect my body. But yeah, the other stupid thing is I want to do this one more time — that’s it. One more time. We always give second chance to ourselves and I want to do this.”

Jedrzejczyk has been vocal about how difficult her weight cuts were going down to strawweight, especially before the first fight with Namajunas. Ultimately, it seems she believes her long-term future is at 125, saying that she didn’t find Shevchenko to be the strongest fighter she has faced.

But for now, she’ll wait and see what happens in the likely Namajunas title defense against Jessica Andrade and then take it from there. Jedrzejczyk owns a win over Andrade and could slip into a title shot easily if Andrade were champion.

“Definitely, I want to challenge myself and chase my other dream and go for the strawweight belt again,” Jedrzejczyk said. “So I will wait for Andrade and Rose to fight next year. Rose has only four months left to defend the belt, because otherwise she might lose the belt with no fight. That’s the thing. Because i was a pretty busy champion, other champions were pretty busy. But if you defend your title once a year, you’re losing the belt. We will see.”