Gadelha is coming off a loss to J. Bate-Estaca, in September last year, at UFC Japan. (Photo: UFC / Reproduction)
One of the biggest rivalries between women's bantamweights, Claudia Gadelha e Carla esparza will take place at UFC 225 in Chicago (USA) on Saturday (09). The clash was scheduled twice while the fighters were at Invicta FC, but it never happened. Now, the Brazilian focuses on the triumph over Esparza to get in line to fight for the strawweight belt.
In the five years of rivalry, the two times the fight was postponed Claudinha had health problems or injuries. In January 2013, the Brazilian broke her nose and the fight was rescheduled. In December of the same year, Gadelha fell ill after weighing in for the event.
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This time, the Brazilian doubled her care to prevent unforeseen events from happening. “I'm being very careful in the days leading up to the fight so I don't get hurt, but I'm happy it's finally going to happen. This fight was supposed to happen twice before, I trained a lot to fight Carla. This is the third camp I've done to fight with her”, said Gadelha.
The Brazilian fighter believes that the strategy is knowing how to defend the takedowns applied by the opponent. “I think my boxing is better than hers. I'm not scared of her wrestling, I have the highest number of falls in the category. Even though I didn't come from wrestling, I really like training. I adapted my jiu-jitsu to wrestling very well. I’m going to take her down too, I’m also going to want to fight on the ground,” she explained.
Claudia gadelha comes from a defeat to the also Brazilian, Jessica Stacker, in September 2017, at UFC Japan. Esparza, on the other hand, had two consecutive decision victories in 2017.
Even with the focus on seeking the strawweight title, Gadelha believes that Jessica Stacker (currently second in the ranking), deserves to compete for the category title against the category champion Rose namajunas.
“I think she deserves it, yes. I thought she was very strong for the category, so much so that I've never felt the strength of any woman like I felt hers. I compare her strength to that of a man in the 57kg category. And I believe she has the game to beat Namajunas. If Jéssica beats her and I beat Carla, I think I deserve to fight Jéssica again. And if Jéssica loses to Namajunas, I think I deserve to fight Namajunas. So that’s the focus,” she concluded.
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