BJJ black belt Claudia “Claudinha” Gadelha looks to rebound from the first defeat of her MMA career when she returns to the Octagon on April 11th at UFC Fight Night 64: “Gonzaga vs Cro Cop 2” in Kraków, Poland. Gadelha is expected to face Irish standout Aisling “Ais The Bash” Daly on the card.
MMAFighting.com first reported on the targeted matchup on Wednesday night. Gadelha is coming off of a razor-thin Split Decision loss to Joanna Jędrzejczyk at UFC on FOX 13 on December 13th. One night earlier, Daly submitted Alex “Astro Girl” Chambers at The Ultimate Fighter 20 Finale.
Gadelha (12-1-0) is one of the most decorated grapplers in the women’s strawweight division and she was seen by many as the biggest threat to current UFC champion Carla “Cookie Monster” Esparza’s title. After winning her UFC debut in July, Gadelha was matched up against Jędrzejczyk in a number one contender’s bout in December. She scored takedowns and threatened with submissions in all three rounds, but Jędrzejczyk dropped Gadelha with an uppercut late in round one and did just enough in the middle stanza to take a narrow Split Decision win on the scorecards.
Daly (15-5-0) was one of 16 women signed to take part in The Ultimate Fighter 20, an all-female season that culminated with the inaugural UFC Women’s Strawweight Championship bout on December 12th. During the tough competition, Daly advanced on to the quarterfinal round before suffering a three-round Unanimous Decision loss to former Invicta FC Atomweight Champion Jessica Penne. While her title hopes were dashed for the time being, Daly’s official UFC debut ended in an impressive victory when she forced Chambers to tap out to an armbar late in the first round.
UFC Fight Night 64: “Gonzaga vs Cro Cop 2” takes place on April 11th at Kraków Arena in Kraków, Poland. The event is headlined by a heavyweight rematch between Gabriel “Napão” Gonzaga and the returning Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović.
Should be a great fight and card. Interesting that Gadelha will be fighting in Joanna Jędrzejczyk’s home country of Poland.
Now that 135 is taken care of, it seems like they will start booking 115 fights. Daly is a weird fighter, she is very stiff. But she can be a top 10 sw and would beat Inoue, Faria, Karolina, and Katja easily right now. Her “loss” was to Penne, who is probaly top 5 at 115. But Claudia should still be a heavy favorite.
Aisling is one of the hardest match-ups for Gadelha, style-wise. I think Gadelha will win a decision, but it won’t be easy for her.
In my book, Gadelha is the #1 flyweight, and she defeated Joanna all three rounds.
Ouch. Waiting on Rob’s breakdown of Budd vs Holloway. I found the fight horrible, and there were tons of grappling mistakes there. The scorecards were absurd also, IMO. I think Coenen will destroy Budd either standing or on the ground, unless Budd grinds out a decision.
Did anyone else notice how Budd kept exposing her neck? A better grappler like Talita or Marloes would have captalized for sure…
I felt embarrassed to be a wmma fan after that Budd fight. Fans, the few that watched it, were destroying that fight online. I knew 145 and wmma in Bellator was a very bad idea. Leave wmma to UFC and Invicta.