Jedrzejczyk: No excuses in UFC rematch with Namajunas

Five miles and 154 days. That’s the distance and time between the first fight and Saturday’s UFC 223 rematch between Rose Namajunas and Joanna Jedrzejczyk. Switching from Madison Square Garden to Barclays Center doesn’t make much of a difference, but the fact the women’s strawweight belt is around Namajunas’ waist and not Jedrzejczyk’s is huge because it changes expectations.

Heading into their first fight, at UFC 217 in November, Jedrzejczyk was on the verge of tying Ronda Rousey’s record for the most title defenses in women’s UFC history with six. The equal of any UFC man when it comes to Muay Thai striking, the 30-year-old Jedrzejczyk doesn’t use power or strength to break her opponents. She uses pure skill.

Namajunas, 25, embodied raw po- tential. Competing on “The Ultimate Fighter” for the inaugural women’s strawweight championship, she got to the final match before losing to Carla Esparza. The loss was the beginning of Namajunas’ two-year rise to title contention as she silently improved every time she got in the cage.

It was hard to imagine Namajunas finding a way to beat Jedrzejczyk right up until the moment it happened. Namajunas revealed a new- and-improved striking game that caught the champion flat-footed. She levelled Jedrzejczyk, who tapped out while she was being pounded.

After the fight, Jedrzejczyk congratulated Namajunas and explained the defeat by pointing out she had to cut roughly 10 percent of her body weight in the hours before the weigh-ins because, she said, her nutritionist screwed up.

“My legs got numb after the weigh-ins, my legs got numb on the day of the fight,” she told The Post. “But you know what? I took the fight. I took the weight cut. Because I’m a champion.”

Jedrzejczyk has rectified that problem and thus is out of excuses. Namajunas, meanwhile, is still an enigma. If history is any judge, however, she has been improving, which means she could very easily shock the world. Again.