Claudia Gadelha Discusses Her Change in Fight Camps

– Claudia Gadelha recently spoke with mmajunkie.com, who spoke about leaving her now former Nova Uniao team for Albuquerque, NM (to train under under Greg Jackson and Chris Luttrell). Here are the highlights…

On Making the Change: “Unfortunately, Brazil falls behind on many things, especially sports,” Gadelha said during a Tuesday media day. “Since I wanted to get better, I had to come here. Nova Uniao is a huge team, with great fighters, a team that made many champions – like Greg Jackson’s. The difference is not in gym structure, but in the country. Brazil is a very complicated place to live – especially when you live off of sports. It was time for me to have a more relaxed camp, to rest more, to focus more on the technical aspect. In Brazil, we train a lot, we look hard to evolve – but wrongly. In Brazil, we end up training too much due to the lack of – it’s not even information. I think the Brazilian people suffer so much, and want it so much, that we train a lot. That’s not always the right way. That’s the difference here (in Albuquerque).”

On Feeling Exhausted on her Fight With Joanna Jedrzejczyk: “I’d never felt during a fight, or in any of my training, what I felt in that fight,” Gadelha said. “My arms were heavy. I couldn’t fight. My legs were tired. My body was exhausted. Looking back on it, I think I went overboard wanting to win so much. I did a 17-week camp. It’s way too much. It’s absurd. I trained so much – I felt like Wonder Woman, like the most-trained athlete in the world for that fight, because God knows how much I suffered and how much I trained. But sometimes training too much is not the right way. And that’s what I’m learning getting to know other teams and other mindsets. Cardio was my problem, but it was because I trained too much. I went overboard, I peaked way before the fight, and I think then my body just couldn’t take being there anymore.”

On Originally Not Wanting The Cortney Casey Fight: “She’s ranked No. 14 (in the UFC rankings) and I didn’t want to take the fight because of that,” Gadelha said. “I really wanted to fight Carla Esparza. I think it would have been the right fight. But I don’t know what happened there. she didn’t take it. I even told the UFC that, after this fight, I would only take Carla, because I think this fight needs to happen. After her, it could have been Tecia (Torres), Rose (Namajunas), Jessica (Andrade), I gave them all the possibilities, but they couldn’t make the matchups happen. Cortney Casey had asked for this fight – I said no, but they couldn’t find any opponents for me, and when they called her again she said it was still on for her.”