UFC Zhang vs. Joanna: The Greatest Women's Fight in MMA History

On June eleventh, twenty twenty two, was the rematch greatest women's fight ever, or even the greatest UFC fight despite gender, when Zang Welai defended her title against Joanna jed Jik for the women's straw weight title, where they continued the awesome battle that they started at UFC two forty eight. Here's the story behind how all this happened today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. And the trivia question to listen out for today is who was the first UFC champion to be from China. Now, to start out with, let's jump into both of these fighters and their weight class. First off, they both end up fighting in the straw weight class, which is the lightest waight class for women in the UFC at one fifteen, And if you know anything about fighting, heavyweights usually get the titles, but the lighter weights have a lot more action that goes on in these fights. And the three other weight classes that are fought by the women are flyweight at one twenty five, bantaweight at one thirty five, and featherweight at one forty five. Now. Zang was born to be a fighter, or at least her parents made her that way. Growing up in China, her parents were not wealthy and she literally was put into martial arts at the age of six, but also as she grew up, she practiced other sports such as soccer, track and table tennis, and by the age of twelve, her parents saw that she was excelling in martial arts, so she went to a special martial arts school to specialize in a Chinese wrestling form called Sayi Joao so she could get even more training and she would win multiple championships for her province, but a back injury that she sustained caused her to kind of get out of the sport of fighting by the age of seventeen, so she would just be working odd jobs such as a teacher, hotel clerk, working out a supermarket, and then she began to go to a gym and work as a fitness instructor and this is where she saw Brazilian jujitsu and got back into a fighting and she made her first MMA fight in twenty thirteen, where she actually lost a unanimous decision, but would go on to win eleven straight fights from there and continue that success all the way to making it to the UFC in twenty eighteen, where she made her debut in UFC two hundred and twenty seven, and she would continue her success that whole first year to get the chance at the Women's Strawweight Championship in twenty nineteen at UFC Fight Night one fifty seven, taking on Jessica Andretti, which she won with a first round technical knockout, meaning she was the very first UFC champion ever come from China men or women's and in her first title defense, she would go against former strawweight champion Johanna Jetchik on March seventh, two thousand and twenty UFC two forty eight. Now let's see who her competitor was in that fight. Yoanna join Joichik is a Poland born fighter who got into moy Thai when she was sixteen when she was getting more into fitness, and this led her to actually compete in national and European tournaments, especially in muy Thai and kickboxing, which she did for ten years, winning over sixty matches, and she would win six moy Thai gold medals for the IFMA. But she made her professional MMA debut in twenty twelve, winning her first fight by a unanimous decision, and she would continue that success and within two years she would be signed by UFC and make her debut fighting as a strawweight on j June twenty six, twenty fourteen, beating Jolina and Laima in a unanimous decision. Then she would go on to face Carla Esperanza to win the UFC Strawweight Championship on March fourteenth, two thousand and fifteen, which she won by a TKO in the second round and became the first UFC title holder from Poland in the first female European UFC champion, and she would continue to defend her title over five times, but in her sixth final defense, she faced Rose Namajunas at UFC two seventeen in twenty seventeen, and in a huge upstate, she lost to Rose's first professional fight, and she would have a rematch versus Rose and again lose in a unanimous decision. So at this time she actually went up a weight class to the flyweight, but this didn't help either. She still lost her fight at the flyweight, so she returned back to the strawweight to fight zang WELLII at UFC to forty eight. That brings us to arguably one of the greatest fights in UFC history, UFC two forty eight WELLII versus Youanna. So the fight takes place on March seventh, twenty twenty, at the T Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, and this fight is actually listed as the main event for UFC as we have the champion versus the former champion coming together for the fight. Now, there was multiple challenges at this time, as it was March seventh, twenty twenty, and on March eleventh is when everything shut down in America due to COVID. But zang WELLII was coming from China where everything was getting shut down even earlier, so it took her weeks and weeks to set up everything to come back to this. She went to Dubai and then she went to America and then she had to wait two weeks and it was just a challenge for her to even get to Vegas. But she wanted this fight, and in the first round it started out strong as those fighters were relentless. There was jabs going back and forth so many times, and which is why many people claim that this is one of the greatest fights is it was non stop action, and Zang's strategy was to offer relentless pressure and she did with jazz back and forth, back and forth, really taking a hold of the fight that first round. But in the second round that in tensity ramped up and again Zang came out looking on top that first round, but in the third round Yuanna the fight was taking a toll. Though the fight was still close. Zang was coming out ahead in the first two rounds, but Johanna was still close. But she started to swell it on her forehead, but that didn't stop her from coming out of round three ahead on the fight. But by the fourth round, Juanna's head started to grow and if you look up pictures of it, she kind of looks like there's something wrong with her. In the fight, she had something called a hematoma, which is excess swelling on her forehead and she is fine. It hurt, but most fighters are used to being hurt. But it made it more of a dramatic fight, and it seemed like Zang was really focused on hitting that particular area, making it worse and worse. But that fourth round seemed to come out to a split and then we come to the fifth round where both fighters came out landing as many blows as possible. But after that round the judges came out for a decision and in a split decision, Zang Weli narrowly won. The fight has showcased skills and punches beyond belief in the fight goes down in the memory of almost everyone seen it or goes back to watch it again. As you can go on YouTube, you can search it, watch it. It's about a thirty minute video and you will not be disappointed in the fight quality and after this Zang. After this, Zang defends her title again, goes up against Rose Namajuas and loses her title the following year at UFC to sixty eight, but that doesn't stop the rematch from taking place on June eleven, twenty twenty two, which became another great sensation as the fight continued, but again Zaying came out on top, and the following fight she had at UFC to eighty one. She would face Carla Espinaza for the for the strawweight Championship again in twenty twenty two and gain her title back, which she still holds to this day as of June twenty and twenty four, Yo Wanna Join. Joichik announced her retirement after the UFC to twenty seven rematch versus zaying saying it's been twenty years, she's thirty five years old. She wants to be a mom, a businesswoman, and she appreciates everything she's been giving, but she's gonna move on and she's being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame this year July twenty twenty four. Both these fighters were great for the sport of women's UFC as well just to UFC in general. Help grow the sport. The more publicity you give to women's sports, you can see how successful it can be, as this was arguably one of the greatest fights men or women that you could ever see. And I want to thank Cody Chips for suggesting this topic. And if you want to suggest a topic, please leave us a review wherever we're listening, leave us your name and the topic you want us to cover, and we'll get that made just for you. Come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.