Karolina Kowalkiewicz Promises To Be Faster, More Skilled And Have Better Cardio Than Felice Herrig

UFC strawweight Karolina Kowalkiewicz will look to get her 2018 campaign underway in style at UFC 223 when she takes on Felice Herrig in Brooklyn.

Kowalkiewicz rebounded from two successive losses with win over Jodie Esquibel at UFC Fight Night Gdansk last October and will now be looking to get back into title contention. Speaking to MMANews.pl last evening, the Pole talked about what it was like to be back to winning ways and she explained that it was a big relief.

“In previous year I had two losses, one by one and I just want to bounce back,” Kowalkiewicz said. “Now I have one victory and I’d like to keep winning, so it’s very important for me right now.

It is a great feeling to win, and it doesn’t really matter how you do it. It’s most important just to win. I had two losses before, and it’s really great feeling to get back in shape.”

The former title contender was originally scheduled to face Jessica Andrade, but the bout fell through and the Brazilian was booked to fight a different opponent. Kowalkiewicz went on to explain what happened and indicated that it was the fight she still wanted.

“Everything started with by a cold and obviously I spent two days at home, but I didn’t recover properly, came back to the gym and my tiny cold turned into pneumonia,” she explained.

“The UFC didn’t mind, they understood my situation. We wanted Jessica to wait for me, I wanted to fight her another day, but she spent too much time in her training camp and didn’t want to wait, so they [UFC] changed her opponent.”

With the Andrade fight now out the window, Kowalkiewicz will face Herrig on April 7. Despite Herrig being ranked lower than her, Kowalkiewicz isn’t underestimating her and she says that she’s very respectful of what she brings to the table.

“I’m happy to fight Felice, she’s a very underrated fighter, who has spent the whole time in top 10 of UFC, with 4 wins in a row,” Kowalkiewicz said.

“She is really strong, trains a lot with her body, pull ups, and other strange things on high bars. I know she will be very strong, but I think that I am a bit more skilled. I will have better cardio and I will be a bit faster. Cardio is my biggest strength, I will just tire her out.”