Weekly MMA News Round-Up: A title fight that wasn't meant to be

#3 After big win at UFC Gdansk, Karolina Kowalkiewicz finds herself with a target on her back

Karolina lands a huge punch on Jodie Esquibel

Karolina Kowalkiewicz put on a show at UFC Fight Night 118 in her homeland of Poland last weekend. She earned a much-needed win after dropping two straight when she defeated Invicta FC veteran, Jodie Esquibel.

The #1 ranked UFC Strawweight contender happened to be watching Karolina's performance that night and made her thoughts known:

Will @ufc give me this fight? I already asked and I come here to reinforce, I really want this fight, come on @karolinakowalkiewicz

Jessica Andrade is riding high off the biggest victory of her career when she dominated perennial division #2, Claudia Gadelha to a unanimous decision.

The matchup between the two could definitely be next for each. Especially now that Tecia Torres and Michelle Waterson has been made official. We'll see how things shake out at 115.

Author's take

Personally, if I were the matchmaker, Andrade vs Torres was the fight to make to see who gets the next title shot against Joanna Jedrzejczyk or Rose Namajunas (though obviously, Rose winning would mean we would get an instant rematch). But that was prior to both Karolina's win and the Torres vs Waterson fight being made.

Karolina vs Andrade is now more sensible to determine the next contender since Karolina has won again and a win over Andrade would be title shot worthy. The only other problem here is that either victor creates a rematch(assuming Joanna beats Rose) whereas if it was Torres vs Andrade, Torres winning would create a new fight we haven't seen yet.

That's not to say I don't want to see an Andrade vs Joanna rematch. I think it could be very interesting and more competitive a second time around if Andrade makes the proper adjustments. Karolina though, she got a good win but not over anyone ranked and she hasn't really given us a reason yet to believe she could alter a result against Joanna.