Claudia Gadelha Claims She’s a Better MMA Fighter Than Joanna Jedrzejczyk

Speaking at the post-fight press conference for UFC 212 (via MMAjunkie), Claudia Gadelha discussed her first-round submission win over Karolina Kowalkiewicz. Below are some highlights of the presser.

Gadelha on the problem of getting another fight with Joanna Jedrzejczyk: “I think this fight has no appeal. Joanna and I fought twice and, on paper, my defeats are there. I don’t like fights like these. I want fights that the fans, the UFC, the execs, they all want to watch. I’m sure if the UFC gives me a title shot now, people are going to say, ‘Oh, she lost twice.’ I don’t want that to happen. I want to prepare myself, and I want to show that it’s my challenge to show that I am able to fight Joanna again. I want everybody to come up to me and say, ‘Now Claudia is capable of beating Joanna.’ And that’s why I’m working on the flaws I think that I had when I fought her the first and second time.”

Gadelha on why her situation is complicated: “I’m in a little bit of a complicated situation in the division. I’m the No. 1 in the (UFC’s) ranking, but I fought the champion twice. Everybody is going to want to bypass me to fight Joanna. Like Rose (Namajunas). She said she doesn’t want to fight me; she wants to fight Joanna. Before she’d said, ‘Claudia, not now. I’m going to fight Michelle (Waterson). It’s two pretty girls. We’re going to have a cool fight.’ Cool, so she fought Michelle, and maybe she’ll fight for the title. Let her bypass me and fight for the title. Let others who don’t want to fight me bypass and fight for the title because I’ll be preparing to fight Joanna, and I’ll be prepared to fight Joanna. I’m sure of that. I’m not sure what’s going to happen because it’s going to be hard for someone to say yes. Like I said, they’ll want to go around me to fight for the belt – which I would want too. I don’t think that’s wrong. But I’ll talk to (UFC matchmaker) Sean Shelby, to (UFC President) Dana White, to see who’s next. But I want to fight soon. I’m ready to fight again.”

Gadelha on how she’s a better fighter than Joanna Jedrzejczyk: “I have better MMA technique. I’m not a better striker than Joanna, but I’m a better MMA fighter than Joanna. I trained wrongly to fight her. I killed myself. I did a 17-week camp, killing my body. I (was) destroyed. I couldn’t even stand up anymore because I was killing my body. I have all the tools to beat her. I needed to do what I did, to reinvent myself, to get better and find what was missing in my game, which were my cardio, my patience, not letting adrenaline get too high and not kill my body. I found myself.”