{"id":19441,"date":"2019-10-10T07:08:27","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T07:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/?p=19441"},"modified":"2019-10-10T07:08:27","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T07:08:27","slug":"waterson-if-joannas-playing-mind-games-theyre-not-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/?p=19441","title":{"rendered":"Waterson: If Joanna\u2019s Playing Mind Games, They\u2019re Not Working"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><small>Photo by Mike Ehrmann\/Zuffa LLC\/Zuffa LLC<\/small><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2019\/10\/9\/20906286\/joanna-jedrzejczyk-cant-make-weight-michelle-waterson-ufc-tampa\">Recent reports<\/a> stated that Joanna Jedrzejczyk had informed Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) officials that she would likely miss the 115-pound weight limit for her scheduled Strawweight fight against Michelle Waterson, set for this Saturday (Oct. 12, 2019) at UFC Fight Night 161 in Tampa, Fl.<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div data-anthem-component=\"readmore\" data-anthem-component-data='{\"stories\":[{\"title\":\"Waterson &lsquo;Disheartened&rsquo; By Weigh-In Debacle, Jedrzejczyk Wants Her To Calm Down\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2019\/10\/9\/20906913\/michelle-waterson-disheartened-ufc-tampa-weigh-in-debacle-joanna-jedrzejczyk-wants-her-calm-down-mma\"}]}'><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>A few hours later, though, Joanna went to social media to act surprised at the drama surrounding her, saying that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2019\/10\/9\/20906913\/michelle-waterson-disheartened-ufc-tampa-weigh-in-debacle-joanna-jedrzejczyk-wants-her-calm-down-mma\">everything would be alright<\/a>. That prompted Team Waterson to feel that perhaps Joanna was playing mind games, something she&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2017\/10\/25\/16551224\/joanna-jedrzejczyk-calls-rose-namajunas-mentally-unstable-ufc-217\">been known to do in the past. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;You know, any advantage you can get as a fighter you&rsquo;re gonna try to get,&rdquo; Waterson told reporters (via <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/2019\/10\/michelle-waterson-joanna-jedrzejczyk-wants-have-cake-eat-it-too\">MMA Junkie<\/a>) at open workouts. &ldquo;And I think that Joanna&rsquo;s been really good in her career in playing that psychological warfare an getting in her opponent&rsquo;s head before the fight even starts.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div data-anthem-component=\"actionbox\" data-anthem-component-data='{\"title\":\"&lt;a class=\"ql-link\" href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2ZsIzv3\" target=\"_blank\"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Watch UFC Fight Night 161 On ESPN+ Here!&lt;\/strong&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;\",\"description\":\"Stream all of &ldquo;Joanna vs. Waterson&rdquo;-led fights LIVE from Tampa for just $4.99 &mdash; don&rsquo;t miss a single second of face-punching action!\",\"label\":\"&lt;strong&gt;SIGN UP NOW!&lt;\/strong&gt;\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/2ZsIzv3\"}'><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>According to reports, UFC was trying to convince Michelle to take the fight at a catchweight, something she rejected, as she felt Joanna &mdash; who is already the bigger fighter &mdash; would have even more of an advantage.  <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Who knows, maybe she thought she wanted to have her cake and eat it to because of my kindhearted nature.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div data-anthem-component=\"readmore\" data-anthem-component-data='{\"stories\":[{\"title\":\"Jedrzejczyk Nearly Died Cutting Weight For UFC 217\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2017\/12\/8\/16753622\/ufc-217-weight-cutting-torture-left-joanna-jedrzejczyk-screaming-lucky-to-be-alive\"}]}'><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Still, despite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2017\/12\/8\/16753622\/ufc-217-weight-cutting-torture-left-joanna-jedrzejczyk-screaming-lucky-to-be-alive\">Joanna missing weight in the past<\/a>, Waterson was surprised that the possibility of her coming in heavy &mdash; or the illusion of it &mdash; caught her off guard. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Very surprised, actually, because of Joanna&rsquo;s professionalism and this never happening before,&rdquo; Waterson said. &ldquo;We knew that she was going to be the bigger girl Joanna&rsquo;s just always been a bigger 115er but we never in a million years thought that she wouldn&rsquo;t be make weight, so yeah, it&rsquo;s disheartening.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div data-anthem-component=\"readmore\" data-anthem-component-data='{\"stories\":[{\"title\":\"Watch Jedrzejczyk&rsquo;s Scary Weight Cut From 2015!\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2017\/12\/9\/16757072\/video-watch-joanna-jedrzejczyks-grueling-weight-cut-from-2015-mma\"}]}'><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Still, Waterson is doing her best to keep her focus on the task at hand, <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m hoping it was just a moment of weakness on Joanna&rsquo;s part,&rdquo; Waterson said. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;m still hopeful that she pulls through and makes the weight on Friday because both of us have been preparing for this fight fight for quite a while now and I wouldn&rsquo;t want to disappoint the fans.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<aside>\n<div data-anthem-component=\"readmore\" data-anthem-component-data='{\"stories\":[{\"title\":\"Free Fight! Waterson Dominates Karolina In Philly \",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2019\/10\/7\/20903691\/ufc-tampa-free-fight-michelle-waterson-dominate-karolina-kowalkiewicz-philadelphia-mma\"}]}'><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>At the end of the day, Waterson says even if Joanna tried (or tries) to play mind games with her, it won&rsquo;t work. And it&rsquo;s something Waterson says Joanna is very aware of, since they&rsquo;ve gotten close over the last year and they both know exactly who they really are. <\/p>\n<p><strong>To see who else is fighting at UFC Fight Night 161: &ldquo;Joanna vs Waterson&rdquo; click <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/2019\/8\/21\/20826686\/latest-ufc-fight-night-161-fight-card-rumors-updates-joanna-vs-waterson-espn-oct-12-tampa-mma\"><strong>here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><ins class=\"adbladeads\" data-cid=\"25014-4024605408\" data-host=\"web.adblade.com\" data-tag-type=\"4\" style=\"display:none\"><\/ins><br \/>\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/web.adblade.com\/js\/ads\/async\/show.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Mike Ehrmann\/Zuffa LLC\/Zuffa LLC Recent reports stated that Joanna Jedrzejczyk had informed Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) officials that she would likely miss the 115-pound weight limit for her scheduled Strawweight fight against Michelle Waterson, set for this Saturday (Oct. 12, 2019) at UFC Fight Night 161 in Tampa, Fl. A few hours later, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mmaexchange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}