Claudia Gadelha may be one of the most dominant women’s strawweights on the planet, however with two losses to Joanna Jedrzejczyk on her record, the top ranked straweweight knows a trilogy fight with the champ may never happen.
With that being said, ahead of her UFC 212 scrap with Karolina Kowalkiewicz on June 3rd, Gadelha knows the winner could very well get a crack at Jessica Andrade if she were to defeat Joanna Jedrzejczyk at 211.
She spoke to Metro.co.uk:
“I’m not really thinking about the title right now. I’m just concentrating on Karolina and the other girls coming up.”
“I’ve already fought Joanna twice and I don’t think that fight is going to happen again now. My goal now is to look better and get better you know and change the whole thing. Whoever wins between Jessica [Andrade] and Joanna is going to say a lot because if Joanna loses the title, Karolina and I are next in line, but if Joanna wins I don’t see me or Karolina fighting here again at all.”
In regards to her fight with Kowalkiewicz on June 3rd, Gadelha stated:
“Karolina makes a lot of mistakes and this is an advantage to me.”
I’m still studying her game and everything and we are still ten, eleven weeks away from the fight, but I already see a lot of mistakes in her game,’ Gadelha said. I see submissions and I see knockouts there.”
Kowalkiewicz recently had a 10-fight win streak that saw her go undefeated throughout her professional career snapped at the hands of Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 205 in a failed bid at the women’s strawweight title.
With a win over Gadelha at UFC 212, she could very well find herself back in the women’s strawweight title mix.
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/22/2017.