Joanna Jędrzejczyk believes she won't need surgery on broken thumb

Despite her initial fears, UFC strawweight champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk doesn't believe she'll need surgery on her broken left thumb.

The undefeated Jędrzejczyk, who injured the thumb in the opening round of her third-round TKO victory over Jessica Penne on June 20 in Berlin, explained on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour that she initially thought she'd need surgery, but now believes she can go without it.

"I went to hospital right away after the fight in Germany," Jędrzejczyk said. "They did the x-ray, they put the cast [on], and they let me go back to Poland and meet the doctors. They said I was going to need the operation. So I went to a good medical center in in Warsaw, Poland, so, yeah, they did the exams again, and they said I don't need surgery, so I'm very happy."

Still, though, Jędrzejczyk, who is in New York City for Tuesday's unveiling of the UFC's Reebok uniforms, will travel to Los Angeles later in the week and meet with a UFC doctor before deciding once and for all on which route to take.

"We will see," she said. "I can be back in 3-4 weeks training [without surgery]. "If I'm going to have the operation, it's going to be three months. I want to fight by the end of the year."

Jędrzejczyk said she could feel the injury during the fight, but she felt she couldn't let on that she was hurt. The results of her fight with Penne sure seem to demonstrate that she was successful in her approach.

"After the first round, I went to my corner, I let my trainer know about it, but it was a fight," she said. "Never, ever for 13 years of fighting career, I've never had big problems and injury. It was extra power for me, it's a fight. We're going to show that, in the fight we cannot show to our opponents that something happened. I am a fighter. I just wanted to show everyone I am going to be champion for awhile."