The UFC women's strawweight division was born out of a reality TV competition, which is a weird origin story for what became one of the most exciting and talent-dense women's divisions in MMA. But that is exactly what happened, and the story of 115 pounds in the UFC is one of the more interesting histories in the sport.
The Ultimate Fighter 20, which aired in 2014, was framed as a tournament to crown the first UFC strawweight champion. Fourteen fighters competed for a title that did not yet exist. The format was familiar -- house drama, training montages, fight brackets -- but the product on the mat was often genuinely excellent because the field included some very good fighters.
Carla Esparza won the tournament, beating Rose Namajunas in the finale to become the first UFC strawweight champion. Esparza had a wrestling-heavy style and relentless pressure that wore opponents down. Namajunas, who was 22 years old at the time and very raw, showed flashes of the brilliance that would define her career later. Esparza's win was legitimate, even if the manner of victory -- a second-round submission -- did not look like the dawn of a new era.
It was not going to be the dawn of the Carla Esparza era, as it turned out. Joanna Jedrzejczyk happened.
Joanna arrived in the UFC in 2014 as a Muay Thai specialist from Poland, and she was immediately different from most of what the division had seen. She was technically precise, physically active, and she talked a lot. She talked to opponents, to the media, to anyone who would listen. The combination of genuine elite striking ability and relentless promotion made her a compelling figure, and when she knocked out Carla Esparza in the first round to win the title in March 2015, it felt like the division had found its first real star.
What followed was a run of dominance that was extraordinary. Jedrzejczyk defended the title five times over two years, beating Jessica Penne, Valerie Letourneau, Claudia Gadelha twice, and Karolina Kowalkiewicz. These were not soft defenses. Gadelha was genuinely tough and pushed her. Kowalkiewicz was a legitimate threat. Joanna handled all of them, and by 2017 she was widely considered the best women's fighter on the planet outside of Amanda Nunes.
Then Rose Namajunas upset her.
The first Namajunas-Jedrzejczyk fight at UFC 217 is one of the great upsets in women's MMA history. Rose came in with a completely different approach from her TUF 20 days. She had grown as a fighter, calmed down psychologically, and had a clear game plan to use her power to stop Joanna early. She knocked Joanna out in the first round. The celebration at Madison Square Garden was genuine and wild.
The rematch happened at UFC 223, and Namajunas won again, this time by decision. Two wins over Jedrzejczyk cemented her as a legitimate champion rather than an upset winner.
Then Jessica Andrade stopped Namajunas with a slam KO at UFC 237, and then Zhang Weili stopped Andrade in 42 seconds, and then the Zhang-Jedrzejczyk wars happened, and then Namajunas came back to beat Zhang twice and stop Weili with a head kick, and then she lost to Carla Esparza in one of the stranger title fights in UFC history, and then Zhang reclaimed the belt.
If that paragraph felt chaotic, that is because the strawweight division has been chaotic. The title has changed hands more times at 115 than at almost any other weight class in women's MMA. No one has fully dominated the way Jedrzejczyk did for those two years. It is wide open, genuinely competitive, and full of fighters who can beat each other on any given night.
The current landscape has Zhang Weili sitting at the top as champion with the kind of comprehensive skill set that makes her hard to beat, but several challengers who have legitimate paths to victory. Tatiana Suarez has been one of the best wrestlers in the division for years and keeps returning from injuries to remind everyone she exists. Yan Xiaonan has been quietly excellent for a long time. The division is not short on interesting fights.
What the history of strawweight shows is that 115 pounds has produced some of the most technically interesting women's fights in UFC history. The Jedrzejczyk-Namajunas I fight belongs on any list of the best women's MMA fights ever. The Zhang-Jedrzejczyk fights were wars of attrition and precision. The division punches above its weight in terms of entertainment because the fighters at 115 tend to have excellent technique.
It also shows how much the division has grown from those TUF 20 days. The fighters competing now are better, more rounded, and more athletic than the fighters who competed in that first tournament. The field is deeper. The title is contested between genuinely elite practitioners.
For anyone who followed Esparza's original run and lost track of the division, catching up is worth it. Fifteen years of strawweight history has produced some of the best fights in the UFC.
UFC Fight Pass has the complete strawweight archive, from Esparza's first title fight through every Jedrzejczyk defense and every Zhang Weili bout. All of it is there.
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