Controversy
Zhang vs. Jedrzejczyk 1 Scorecard: Did Zhang Really Beat Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248?
Jedrzejczyk landed more significant strikes, and three of the five rounds were dead level. Zhang landed the counter that raised the fight's famous swelling, and two judges gave her the title.
Zhang
JedrzejczykAt a glance
- ResultZhang by split decision - 48-47, 48-47, 47-48; Zhang's first title defence
- The judgesMichael Bell and Derek Cleary for Zhang, Eric Colón for Jedrzejczyk; only round 3 was unanimous, for Jedrzejczyk
- The statsSignificant strikes 186-165 to Jedrzejczyk; level at 30, 38 and 40 in rounds 1, 3 and 4
- The media15 of 21 media scorecards on MMADecisions had Zhang winning, six Jedrzejczyk
- The honoursFight of the Night, 2020 Fight of the Year for Sherdog and Cageside Press, and announced for the UFC Hall of Fame in 2026
- Our card48-47 Zhang
What was at stake
Zhang Weili had won the strawweight title in August 2019 by knocking out Jessica Andrade in the first round, which made her the first Chinese fighter to hold a UFC title, as LowKick and The China Project both report; Sherdog puts the time at 42 seconds. UFC 248 was her first defence, according to Sports Illustrated and Cageside Press. She came in at 20-1 and her opponent at 16-3, Sports Illustrated reported. Getting to the fight had not been simple: "It took us a long time to get here because of the coronavirus back in our country, everybody knows that," she said afterwards, according to CBS Sports.
Joanna Jedrzejczyk was the former champion. She lost the title to Rose Namajunas at UFC 217 in November 2017 and lost the rematch on points in April 2018, according to CBS Sports and her MMADecisions record. Since then she had beaten Tecia Torres and Michelle Waterson-Gomez on points and lost a flyweight title fight to Valentina Shevchenko, according to her MMADecisions record; LowKick also reports the Shevchenko and Waterson-Gomez fights.
The official scorecards
Who scored it for whom, from MMADecisions; AsianMMA reports the same split, and the official ufcstats record lists the same three totals with Colón's as the card that went the other way. Scores are written Zhang first.
| Judge | R3 | Total | Winner on the card |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Bell | 9-10 | 48-47 | Zhang |
| Derek Cleary | 9-10 | 48-47 | Zhang |
| Eric Colón | 9-10 | 47-48 | Jedrzejczyk |
CBS Sports, Cageside Press and UFC.com all report the same three totals.
The third round was the only one all three judges agreed on, and they gave it to Jedrzejczyk, according to ESPN and MMADecisions. Every other round split two to one: four of the five rounds divided the judges, and the result came down to which way those splits fell. Only one source prints each judge's other rounds, so we leave them out.
Round by round
Round 1 - split
Both opened with kicks to the legs, and Jedrzejczyk landed an early right hand, which UFC.com and Cageside Press both describe. The official count could not be closer: 30 significant strikes each, 14 to the head for Zhang against 13, and 15 leg kicks for Jedrzejczyk against 14. Zhang threw more, 76 significant strikes to 64.
Round 2 - split
The fight moved into the clinch, where both landed knees and elbows, which Cageside Press and UFC.com both describe. Zhang tripped Jedrzejczyk and took her down late in the round, according to Cageside Press, and the official count gives Zhang one takedown from five attempts. Jedrzejczyk had the better of the striking: 32 significant strikes to 20, including 10 to the body against 2.
Round 3 - Jedrzejczyk on all three cards
Jedrzejczyk switched to southpaw, which UFC.com reports in two separate accounts of the fight. The numbers were level again, 38 significant strikes each; Jedrzejczyk landed eight to the body against one, and Zhang tried three takedowns and completed none. Late in the round Zhang caught a kick and landed a counter right, and a swelling began to rise on Jedrzejczyk's forehead, as Sherdog and UFC.com both describe. All three judges gave Jedrzejczyk the round.
Round 4 - split
It was Zhang's first time in a fourth round, which UFC.com and Sherdog both note. By now the swelling on Jedrzejczyk's forehead was growing, as CBS Sports, UFC.com and Cageside Press all report. The round was level once more, 40 significant strikes each, 27 to the head for Zhang against 28.
Round 5 - split
The last round had the two moments most people remember. Zhang landed a left hook that hurt Jedrzejczyk, and Jedrzejczyk answered in the closing seconds with a spinning backfist that wobbled Zhang, according to UFC.com and Sherdog. Jedrzejczyk landed more: 46 significant strikes to 37, and 9 to the body against 3.
What the numbers say
The official statistics, round by round (Zhang first):
| Round | Sig. strikes | Head | Body | Legs | Takedowns | Control |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | 30 – 30 | 14 – 13 | 2 – 2 | 14 – 15 | 0/0 – 0/0 | 0:00 – 0:00 |
| R2 | 20 – 32 | 12 – 15 | 2 – 10 | 6 – 7 | 1/5 – 0/0 | 0:32 – 0:26 |
| R3 | 38 – 38 | 19 – 17 | 1 – 8 | 18 – 13 | 0/3 – 0/0 | 0:26 – 0:09 |
| R4 | 40 – 40 | 27 – 28 | 3 – 3 | 10 – 9 | 0/0 – 0/0 | 0:11 – 0:15 |
| R5 | 37 – 46 | 24 – 23 | 3 – 9 | 10 – 14 | 0/0 – 0/0 | 0:04 – 0:11 |
| Total | 165 – 186 | 96 – 96 | 11 – 32 | 58 – 58 | 1/8 – 0/0 | 1:13 – 1:01 |
Over 25 minutes Jedrzejczyk landed 21 more significant strikes, and she landed them more often: 52% of what she threw against Zhang's 40%. But look where the difference came from. The two landed exactly as many strikes to the head, 96 each, and exactly as many to the legs, 58 each. Jedrzejczyk's whole lead was to the body, 32 to 11, and almost all of it came in rounds 2, 3 and 5. Sherdog's Fight of the Year citation makes the same point about rounds 1, 3 and 4: identical significant-strike counts. There were no knockdowns.
What the numbers cannot show is how hard the punches landed. Both fighters finished marked up, but the most visible damage of the fight, the swelling on Jedrzejczyk's forehead that CBS Sports, UFC.com and Sherdog all describe, came from a Zhang counter.
The media leaned to Zhang. Of the 21 media scorecards collected by MMADecisions, 15 had Zhang winning and six had Jedrzejczyk. The fans were split: of the 1,469 fan cards on the same page, the most common score was 48-47 for Jedrzejczyk, at 36.6%, just ahead of 48-47 for Zhang at 33.6%.
How we scored it
| Round | MMA.SOCIAL | Why |
|---|---|---|
| R1 | 10-9 Zhang | Level at 30 significant strikes each; Zhang was the busier fighter, 76 thrown to 64. The closest round of the fight. |
| R2 | 10-9 Jedrzejczyk | 32-20 in significant strikes and 10-2 to the body, more than Zhang's late takedown. |
| R3 | 10-9 Zhang | Level at 38 each, and the counter right late in the round raised the swelling that marked the rest of the fight. |
| R4 | 10-9 Zhang | Level at 40 each again, with Zhang's punches the ones visibly marking Jedrzejczyk's face. |
| R5 | 10-9 Jedrzejczyk | 46-37 in significant strikes and the spinning backfist that wobbled Zhang at the end. |
| Total | 48-47 Zhang |
Our card matches Bell's and Cleary's totals, but not every round: all three judges gave the third to Jedrzejczyk, and we give it to Zhang. When a round is level on significant strikes we look at what the strikes did, and the counter right that started the swelling on Jedrzejczyk's forehead did more than her body work in that round.
The case for Jedrzejczyk is a strong one, and the fans' scorecards show it. She out-landed Zhang over the fight, won the second and fifth rounds clearly on the numbers and was the more accurate striker. A 48-47 card for her is a reasonable score, and Colón had exactly that.
What happened next
"I wasn't really sure that I got it, it was a great performance and we're all martial artists here," Zhang said afterwards, according to CBS Sports. Jedrzejczyk said: "She did great. There was something missing but I felt all the punches and the swelling was bothering me," according to the same report. Both were taken to hospital that night and released the next morning without significant injuries, according to their teams, as LowKick reports.
Dana White was among the fight's biggest admirers. "Right here off the top of my head, I would have to say it was the best women's MMA fight I've ever seen," he said, according to The China Project; Sherdog quotes him saying "It's one of the best fights I've ever seen." Both fighters received the Fight of the Night bonus of $50,000, according to Sherdog. Sherdog and Cageside Press both named it their Fight of the Year for 2020, and in March 2026 the UFC announced it for the Fight Wing of its Hall of Fame, according to Cageside Press.
Zhang lost the title in her next fight, knocked out by a head kick from Namajunas in the first round at UFC 261 on April 24, 2021, according to CBS Sports and Cageside Press, and lost their rematch by split decision that November. The rematch with Jedrzejczyk came at UFC 275 on June 11, 2022: Zhang knocked her out with a spinning backfist in the second round, and Jedrzejczyk announced her retirement in the cage, according to CBS Sports; Yahoo Sports and Cageside Press report the knockout too. Zhang won the title back from Carla Esparza at UFC 281 on November 12, 2022, with a rear-naked choke in the second round, according to CBS Sports and Yahoo Sports.
The verdict
Zhang vs. Jedrzejczyk 1 was not a robbery. It was a fight so even that three of its five rounds ended with identical significant-strike counts, and the judges divided on four of them. Jedrzejczyk landed more and clearly won the second and fifth rounds on the numbers; Zhang landed the punches that did the most visible damage, and two judges and most of the media scored the fight for her. So do we, by a single round. The right result, in a fight neither woman deserved to lose.
Full fight stats: Zhang vs. Jedrzejczyk. The rest of the night: UFC 248. More: the fighters with the most split decisions, the most title fights and the most disputed losses.
Sources
- UFCStats round-by-round statistics (scrape_ufc_stats mirror)
- MMADecisions - Weili Zhang vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk
- MMADecisions - Joanna Jedrzejczyk decision record
- AsianMMA - Weili Zhang scores split decision win over Joanna Jedrzejczyk
- ESPN - UFC 248 oral history
- CBS Sports - Weili Zhang retains strawweight title in epic war with Joanna Jedrzejczyk
- CBS Sports - Joanna Jedrzejczyk suffers hematoma in war with Weili Zhang
- Cageside Press - Weili Zhang edges Joanna Jedrzejczyk in a classic
- UFC - UFC 248 bonus coverage
- UFC - The best women's fights in UFC history
- Sherdog - 2020 Fight of the Year
- Sherdog - UFC 248 bonuses
- Sherdog - Top 10 greatest UFC fights
- The China Project - Zhang Weili retains in instant classic
- LowKick - Jedrzejczyk and Zhang discharged from hospital
- LowKick - Weili Zhang vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk finalized for UFC 248
- Sports Illustrated - Top questions surrounding UFC 248
- Cageside Press - 2020 Fight of the Year
- Cageside Press - Jedrzejczyk vs. Zhang headed to the UFC Hall of Fame
- CBS Sports - UFC 217: Rose Namajunas wins strawweight title
- CBS Sports - UFC 261: Namajunas stuns Zhang with first-round knockout
- CBS Sports - UFC 275: Zhang knocks out Jedrzejczyk
- CBS Sports - UFC 281: Zhang regains strawweight crown
Questions
Who won Zhang vs. Jedrzejczyk 1?
Zhang Weili, by split decision at UFC 248 on March 7, 2020, in her first defence of the strawweight title. Michael Bell and Derek Cleary scored it 48-47 for Zhang and Eric Colón scored it 48-47 for Jedrzejczyk.
What were the Zhang vs. Jedrzejczyk scorecards?
Two cards of 48-47 for Zhang and one of 48-47 for Jedrzejczyk. The only round all three judges agreed on was the third, for Jedrzejczyk; every other round split two to one.
Was Zhang vs. Jedrzejczyk a robbery?
No. Jedrzejczyk landed 186 significant strikes to 165, but three of the five rounds were exactly level, and 15 of the 21 media scorecards on MMADecisions had Zhang winning. We scored it 48-47 for Zhang. A card for Jedrzejczyk is reasonable too, but it was not a robbery.
Who landed more strikes in Zhang vs. Jedrzejczyk?
Jedrzejczyk landed more significant strikes, 186 to 165, according to the official statistics. They landed exactly the same number to the head, 96 each; her lead came from strikes to the body, 32 to 11.
What happened to Joanna Jedrzejczyk's forehead?
A large swelling began to form late in the third round after Zhang caught a kick and countered with a right hand, according to Sherdog and UFC.com. Both fighters went to hospital after the fight and were released the next morning without significant injuries.
Did Zhang and Jedrzejczyk fight again?
Yes. At UFC 275 on June 11, 2022, Zhang knocked Jedrzejczyk out with a spinning backfist in the second round, and Jedrzejczyk retired in the cage afterwards.
