Karolina Kowalkiewicz is the UFC Vegas 80 fighter to watch
Karolina Kowalkiewicz continues to carve out a place for herself on the UFC roster, turning around a major slump to win three-straight fights heading into UFC Vegas 80.
Mixed martial arts careers usually end in the most violent of ways, with older fighters being supplanted by the younger generation. The UFC does a great job at pairing older fighters with younger competitors in hopes of building up the new talent on their names. Karolina Kowalkiewicz is bucking that trend as she continues to put on a run after coming out of retirement. Heading into UFC Vegas 80, she is the fighter to watch.
Kowalkiewicz has quite the UFC tenure. She walked into the company in 2015 and stretched the undefeated streak to start her career to ten-straight wins. That led to a fight with another legend in mixed martial arts, Joanna Jedrzejczyk. They battled for the UFC women’s strawweight title at UFC 205. That defeat kicked off a trying run for Kowalkiewicz.
After dropping that fight to the champion, she would lose six of her last eight battles, getting stopped in three of those. She was losing to the upper echelon of the division. Names such as Jessica Andrade, Yan Xiaonan, Claudia Gadelha, and the current champion, Alexa Grasso. After being submitted by Jessica Penne at UFC 265, Kowalkiewicz decided to step away from the sport, nearly retiring entirely. But she didn’t.
Instead, Kowalkiewicz returned after a year and surged to a three-fight win streak. Along the way she defeated Felice Herrig, Silvana Gomez Juarez, and Vanessa Demopoulos.
Diana Belbita looks to build her own win streak at UFC Vegas 80
Diana Belbita is the next young name up for Kowalkiewicz. Belbita joined the UFC in 2019 and has put together a 2-3 campaign in the Octagon. She last competed at UFC 289 when she defeated Maria Oliveira via unanimous decision.
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