Claudia Gadelha: I’m The Best Fighter In This Division
Claudia Gadelha is flying high after her first round submission win over Karolina Kowalkiewicz last night (Sat. June 3, 2017).
Gadelha is one of the most dominant 115-pound fighters on the UFC’s roster, as her only two losses in her mixed martial arts (MMA) career have come by the way of current strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk. Although she has lost to Jedrzejczyk twice already, Gadelha still considers herself the best fighter in the division.
During the UFC 212 post-fight press conference, Gadelha stated that she knows there are still some areas she needs to improve on before she can become champion of the world (quotes via MMA Fighting):
“I consider myself the best fighter in the division,” Gadelha said. “But I think a few things are missing that I needed to do to perform well inside of the Octagon. And that’s why I decided to change everything in my life. It has not been easy to leave my comfort zone. Ten years living in Rio, I went abroad alone, nobody there. Training with different trainers.
“It’s very, very tough, but I got to a point in my career where I felt I needed to improve and to become the fighter that I wanted to be, and that I desired to be.”
Gadelha has no issues speaking about her two losses to Jedrzejczyk, however, she only believes that one of those defeats was legitimate:
“It doesn’t bother me at all to talk about that,” she said. “We’re in a sport where you can win and you can lose at anytime. Of course, we always want positive results, but we can’t always get that.
“And about my two defeats to Joanna, I only believe there is one. There’s two on paper, but if you were to analyze the fight, I did not lose that first fight to her. The second fight I really did lose, but if you were to look technically at it, I have better technique, and better MMA technique. I’m not a better striker, but I’m a better MMA fighter than Joanna. But I trained incorrectly to fight with her.”
As for what exactly went wrong in her training for Jedrzejczyk, Gadelha stated that she ‘killed’ her body during her preparation for the title bout:
“I killed myself,” she said. “I trained for 17 weeks in my camp, killing my body. I was destroyed, I couldn’t even stand up. I was killing my body. I’m that kind of Brazilian. I never give up, and I always give my best at all times. And sometimes giving your best is not the right thing. You have to follow the recipe or it’s not going to come out right. That’s exactly what I did in the second fight against Joanna.
“How do I see myself in the division today, I believe I’ve got the No. 1 ranking, at least on paper. Joanna is the champion. I have all the tools to beat her, but I needed to do what I did to reinvent myself, to be able to improve and to find what was missing in my game, as far as my cardio, my patience.”
