“I Couldn’t Get Nice Sleep”- Zhang Weili Criticizes Her Performance At UFC 248

UFC 248 witnessed one of the best bouts in the history of the WMMA strawweight division. Zhang Weili made her debut title defense against Joanna Jedrzejczyk. The Magnum managed to retain her title.

Zhang did a commendable job at her first title defense. In spite of the problems that the Coronavirus caused.

In the weeks leading up to their matchup, the novel virus was plaguing Weili’s home nation. Restrictions on travel in and out of the country forced her to move her training camp to Thailand.

Only a week into their move to Thailand they had to relocate to Abu Dhabi. After the virus had followed them to the Land of Smiles.

After preparing for her fight with the Polish national in Abu Dhabi, she made her way to Sin City, Las Vegas.

“I didn’t put my best performance on because I haven’t really acclimatized at all here in Vegas. I have been traveling to like three, four different places for this fight. So I had a tough time acclimatizing to the time zone. I have like three to five hours of sleep when normally I sleep like nine to ten hours in Beijing. But here in Vegas I just couldn’t get a nice sleep,”- Zhang Weili 

The constant traveling put a lot of undue load on the fighter that affected her performance adversely.

She was also dissatisfied with her performance in the initial rounds of the fight.

“The first two rounds, I was playing her game. Then in the third round, I found my own pace.”- Zhang Weili

Despite having put up the best fight of the night, the Chinese champion feels she could have done much better. It would be interesting to see Weili perform at her fullest if she left Jedrzejczyk looking like that with sub-par training.

Weili is not looking for another fight as of now. She did not get to take any time off after taking the title off of Jessica Andrade’s hands. She is now set to relax and enjoy the $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus.