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Claudia Gadelha plans to take a hiatus from competition following her first career loss to someone other than unbeaten UFC strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
In a clash of top 115-pound contenders, Gadelha (15-3 MMA, 4-3 UFC) was handed a lopsided unanimous decision defeat by Jessica Andrade (17-6 MMA, 8-4 UFC) in Friday’s UFC Fight Night 117 co-headliner, which took place at Saitama Super Arena in Japan and aired on FXX.
The outcome was a damaging blow to Gadelha’s quest for another fight with Jedrzejczyk (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC). She’s already fallen short to the Polish titleholder twice, with the most recent being a unanimous decision loss at The Ultimate Fighter 23 Finale in July 2016, but her competitiveness with the champion opened up the possibility for another fight to happen.
Gadelha isn’t out of the running for good, but the loss to Andrade is a setback. Despite that, Gadelha is taking full responsibility for her performance and is not deflecting blame on anyone other than on herself (via Instagram):
No excuses. All merit goes to Jessica. Congratulations on your performance. Now my heart asks me to say something to you guys because I am feeling how much loved I am, how blessed I am, and how much I live the life I asked God for. I’m happy to see real friends and fans in defeat too, and that’s priceless. Thank you all for everything! I want to come here also to communicate that I will take some time off. I just went through 3 fights in 10 months, 10 months of much learning but also very tiring. I need time with my parents who are in Brazil loving me in the same way, my entire family as well. I’m going to be Ana Claudia a little more, breathe light things and enjoy the pleasures of life a little bit. With the certainty that Claudinha will come back stronger. Thanks to those who got my back!! Love you all!!
Since the encounter with Jedrzejczyk, the Brazilian took a unanimous decision over Cortney Casey at UFC Fight Night 100 in November. She followed that up with a quick submission of Karolina Kowalkiewicz at in June, setting up the encounter with Andrade.
Although she had a strong opening round, Andrade’s pace and output were too much for Gadelha to handle as the bout wore on, and the “Fight of the Night” affair ended with scorecards of 30-25, 30-26 and 30-27.
Gadelha vows to return to the drawing board after the defeat and return as a superior version of herself.
For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 117, check out the UFC Events section of the site.
Filed under: Featured, News, UFC