UFC

Former UFC women's strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk announced her retirement from mixed martial arts competition Saturday night.

After her second-round knockout loss to Zhang Weili at UFC 275, Jedrzejczyk said she was walking away from the sport in her post-fight interview inside the Octagon.

UFC President Dana White praised Jedrzejczyk for having a stellar career and helping shape the course of women's mixed martial arts.

"She was such a huge part of the growth of women’s MMA, and it was incredible to have her be a part of this company," White told Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole. "We will ALL miss her!

When Jedrzejczyk signed a new UFC deal in April and agreed to her bout with Weili, she told MMA Fighting's Damon Martin it was a multi-fight contract with the promotion.

"It’s a multiple-fight deal," Jedrzejczyk told MMA Fighting. "I always said that I want to retire in the UFC, and of course people would love to see me doing this or that after, but I feel like if I retired from MMA, I would retire from the UFC, the best MMA league in the world."

Saturday marked Jedrzejczyk's first fight in 27 months. The Polish superstar lost to Weili at UFC 248 in March 2020 in a match for the women's strawweight title.

Jedrzejczyk has lost five of her last seven fights, with four of those bouts for either the women's strawweight or flyweight championship.

For most of her career, Jedrzejczyk was the best fighter in the women's 115-pound division. She become the second strawweight champion in UFC history when she beat Carla Esparza by TKO at UFC 185.

Jedrzejczyk began her career with 14 consecutive wins, including five successful title defenses. No other woman in the strawweight division has ever successfully defended the championship more than once.

Only counting her UFC tenure, Jedrzejczyk's 10 wins are tied with Esparza for most in the women's 115-pound weight class.

The UFC announced on Saturday night that Kamaru Usman would defend his welterweight title on Aug. 20 in a rematch with Leon Edwards at UFC 278 at Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City.

Usman won the first fight between the men all the way back at UFC on Fox: dos Anjos vs. Cowboy 2 in 2015.

Usman, 35, won the welterweight title at UFC 235 in 2019, defeating Tyron Woodley. He's defended it five times, beating Colby Covington and Jorge Masvidal twice apiece and Gilbert Burns in his impressive run.

He's now 20-1 in his professional MMA career and is considered the UFC's best pound-for-pound fighter in the entire promotion.

Edwards, 30, is 19-3-1 in his professional MMA career and hasn't lost in the UFC since his defeat against Usman. He's the No. 2 contender in the division behind only Covington, making him the next logical opponent for the champ.

He last fought at UFC 263 in June 2021, defeating Nate Diaz.

Since first fighting one another, both men have seemed to be on an eventual crash course, with neither losing since. A winning streak will end in the main event of UFC 278.

"He's improved loads, but so have I," Edwards told Harry Davies of the Mirror back in March. "When I fought him I was 22 years old. I'm now 30 years old. I've learned a lot over that space of time, but so has he. It'll be a totally different fight from what it was back then, so we have to look at it as a new fight."

The UFC will return to Salt Lake City for the first time since 2016, when it held a UFC Fight Night promotion. It will be the city's first UFC pay-per-view event.

Fresh off an impressive win over Tony Ferguson at UFC 274 last month, Michael Chandler has his sights set on Conor McGregor.

In an interview with TMZ Sports (beginning at the 2:55 mark), Chandler discussed his desire to fight arguably the biggest star in UFC history:

"I would love the opportunity to compete against him," Chandler said. "If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, you know, I'm not going to lose sleep at night. But it's definitely the fight that I want."

Since a lengthy run in Bellator MMA that saw him hold the promotion's lightweight title three times, Chandler has made a strong transition to UFC.

Chandler is 2-2 under the UFC umbrella, beating Dan Hooker and Ferguson and losing to Charles Oliveira and Justin Gaethje, although the Gaethje fight went the distance and was named Fight of the Night.

With a career record of 23-7 with 11 knockouts and seven submissions, Chandler is a dangerous fighter and would undoubtedly pose a stiff challenge to McGregor.

The 33-year-old McGregor has already established himself as a UFC legend, having held the featherweight and lightweight titles, but success has eluded him in recent years.

After starting his career 19-2, McGregor has lost four of his past seven fights, three of his past four and two in a row.

McGregor fell to Dustin Poirier at both UFC 257 and 264, and the UFC 264 loss saw him suffer a broken leg that has kept him on the shelf for the past 11 months.

UFC president Dana White said this week that he is hopeful McGregor will return in late 2022 or early 2023 and a fight with Chandler is possible, as White said he "really likes" the idea of McGregor vs. Chandler.

If Chandler were to beat McGregor, he would likely find himself right back in the UFC lightweight title hunt.

It's been one year since Conor McGregor last fought, but UFC president Dana White is hopeful the Notorious One's sabbatical comes to an end soon.

Speaking to TMZ Sports, White said McGregor is "starting to ramp up his training" after breaking his leg in his last fight and hopes he can fight again by "the end of this year, early next year."

McGregor underwent surgery on July 11, hours after his fight with Dustin Poirier was stopped at the end of the first round when he tried to plant his left foot and his leg collapsed under him.

In a statement released by his agent, Audie Attar, doctors said they were "confident" McGregor would "make a full recovery" and they "anticipate his return to the Octagon."

Speaking to SevereMMA (h/t MMAFighting.com) in February), McGregor said doctors told him in April he would be allowed to spar again, but he didn't provide a concrete timeline to fight again.

"Day by day, I feel better," he said. "They’re telling me to just take it easy, but I feel I can go, so I just need to kind of pull the reins back on my own self, so that’s kind of what I’m doing."

White said he was looking at Michael Chandler as McGregor's next opponent but noted "we'll see what the landscape looks like when Conor gets back."

Chandler snapped a two-fight losing skid on May 7 with a second-round TKO victory over Tony Ferguson at UFC 274.

Since defeating Jose Aldo to become the undisputed UFC featherweight champion in December 2015, McGregor has a 3-4 record in his last seven fights. He has lost each of his last two bouts, both to Poirier.

In addition to his mixed martial arts career, McGregor dabbled in boxing for a showdown with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2017. He lost the bout via TKO in the 10th round, but it was a massive financial success with 4.3 million pay-per-view buys.