Former UFC title challenge Claudia Gadelha is coming off one of the toughest losses of her career.
The fan favorite Brazilian fighter was out muscled and outworked over the course of three rounds by another former title challenger in Jessica Andrade.
Now batting .500 in her last four fights, the once unstoppable contender has announced she’s taking a break from the fight game.
Taking to the Brazilian media In Sao Paulo, Brazil, (via MMAFighting’s Cruz) Claudia Gadelha stated,
“I haven’t trained in a month, and I’ve started to get crazy. I try not to watch fights, but I can’t [laughs]. I went to watch Poliana’s (Botelho) fight, she’s a friend of mine, and I got all excited again. I said ‘no, I’ll get this off my head [laughs].’ I want to give my head some time, more time for my friends, for the people I love, to my family. I want to enjoy life, collect experiences with the people I love, and I really needed this time.
“I planned my life until February. I’ll travel with my parents. My parents never traveled outside of Brazil, and I’m taking them to the United States now, fulfilling a dream, and I’ll enjoy life for a bit until February, and then I’ll come back.”
“I never saw something like this happen, I never noticed any athlete do this, but I think it has happened to me. I started to lose a bit of my passion for training. I left my house really young, at 15, with a goal in mind. I fought professionally for the first time when I was 18, and I will turn 29 and never stopped. I want to continue, I will continue, but I think I needed this time for me.
“I haven’t stopped a bit over the past 11 years to give my family and friends some attention. I was too focused on myself and demanding a lot from myself. I think I’m going through that phase when you understand how the light side of the athlete works, and I’m giving myself some time to refresh my mind and understand everything.
“I went through a complicated time when I left Nova Uniao. I can’t say it didn’t hurt, that I didn’t feel anything. I spent more than 11 years inside a team, there were people around me that I thought were my brothers, friends for life, and I never imagined myself leaving Nova Uniao.
“I got over it, and it actually helped me reinvent myself, and then I started to get tired again. I don’t think I was able to balance my training and my mind to prepare for other fights. After the last fight, I realized what I was feeling was real and I decided to pay attention to that.”
“I think that fight taught me a lot. A loss teaches you more than a win, everybody knows that, but I don’t want to forget that (fight). I want to watch it a thousand times to understand my mistakes. The times I’ve watched it, I could see it clearly. That never happened with me before. I entered the Octagon and wasn’t able to fight. I couldn’t fight, I couldn’t do anything, impose my game.”
“Congratulations to Jessica, who imposed her game. I consider myself way better than her technically, but she took it with her strength and will. I admire her for that. I want to watch this fight several times so it becomes a motivation.”
“I can’t watch my title fight with Joanna. I’ve tried, I can only watch it until the third round, I can’t watch the rest because I see I got tired, that it was a matter of preparation, a training mistake, and I got tired. But I wasn’t tired in the fight with Jessica, I think my mind was tired. Claudia Gadelha was tired and needed a time to think a little.”
