Claudia Gadelha walked out of UFC 212 as the first fighter to submit Karolina Kowalkiewicz in her professional MMA career.
The Brazilian says that it was life changes she made prior to the event that lead to her success inside of the Octagon.
“I consider myself the best fighter in the division,” Gadelha said at the UFC 212 post-fight press conference. “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 already suffered two defeats to UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk, a third fight is seemingly out of the picture for now.
Despite the two previous losses to the champion, the Brazilian still has the tools to defeat the Polish superstar.
“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.”
Even though she has fought six times in the UFC thus far, the Brazilian earned her first finish inside of the Octagon at UFC 212, as her other fights all went the distance.
