Two of the most skilled, talented and spectacular female UFC fighters will meet at the upcoming UFC Fight Night: St. Preux VS. Okami event. Their names, which you’ve probably heard before, are Claudia Gadelha and Jessica Andrade.
In a recent interview, Mrs. Andrade stressed what could be phrased as “distress and disdain” for people labeling the fight as a “Brazilian VS. Brazilian” bout. Saying that, Gadelha, since she left the Brazil-based camp known as Nova Uniao, has grown distant from her Brazilian roots, seeing as she is now training at the American, New Mexico-based martial arts camp, Jackson-Wink MMA. She also talks about her game plan for the fight, why she thinks she’ll win and her plans afterward as well.
“Any three round fight, I know that I can go full force for a full fifteen minutes with relentless pressure. With Gadelha, I’m ready for her and I’m going to put as much pressure as I have put on any other opponent and the knockout or submission is going to come.”
“Claudia, since she moved away from Brazil, she says she has changed and her style is different, but the big thing is whenever you get hit – chances are you’ll revert back to who you are; to your origins as a martial artist. And as much as she’s probably interested in striking with me to begin with, as soon as the first hand hits she’ll revert back to who she has always been.”
“I hardly ever feel the strikes of my opponents,” she said. “I’m not sure if it’s my chin that is very good or that they are not as strong. But I also have relentless pressure and I know that I am stronger and I hit harder than anybody in the division. So when you put all of that together, Claudia is going to have a freight train coming after her. And anything she throws at me is not going to stop it.”
When discussing Gadelha’s national allegiances, Andrade opined: “Since she left Brazil and she went to a US based camp with US coaches and training partners, she left us and everybody back home so it’s not as if she’s fighting for Brazil.”
Andrade stressed that her opinion is not based solely off of Gadelha’s decision to leave Brazil. Instead, she claimed, it is the ‘circumstances around her leaving’ which prompted her to have reservations over Gadelha’s Brazilian bona fides. “A lot of people in Brazil are not happy with her,” stated Andrade. “Because of the way things went and because of the statements she made about the country and the people there who are involved in fighting. This is something that she has to be responsible for. It was her decision, as was the way she dealt with it, and her reputation in Brazil was damaged because of it. Especially around the people that are in the sport.”
