Women's strawweight fighter Claudia Gadelha of Brazil interacts with fans during a Q&A session before the UFC 198 weigh-in at Arena da Baixada stadium on May 13, 2016 in Curitiba, Brazil.(Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
UFC women’s strawweight Claudia Gadelha has retired from the sport of mixed martial arts
One-time women’s strawweight title challenger Claudia Gadelha has announced her retirement from the sport of mixed martial arts. The 33-year old Brazilian took to Instagram to announce the same.
Her last fight was in November 2020 at UFC on ESPN: Santos vs Teixeira. She took on Yan Xiaonan and lost via. unanimous decision.
There was more to that fight; Gadelha had suffered a brutal concussion in her fight, and that has played a massive role in her retirement.
In a recent Instagram video, Gadelha confirmed her retirement whilst also attributing her decision to the post-concussion syndrome.
In her video Gadelha said:
“In November of 2020, after the fight. I had a really bad concussion and I had post concussion syndrome. Which is the symptoms of a concussion for a long period of time. So I was suffering with the symptoms for a little while. It was very frustrating because my headaches were like a knife stabbing the back of my head. I was very nauseous, I was like throwing up and feeling very, very bad. I couldn’t even go for a walk, much less train.” [via BJPenn.com]
She continued:
“I found out that without health we are nothing. You know I had to rush to the hospital in the beginning of my concussion, twice. I ended up in the emergency room, twice. You know, so I am here in Las Vegas by myself and my family is in Brazil and this is during COVID so I couldn’t fly to Brazil to go be with my family. Because it was like the beginning of the concussion so I couldn’t fly and my parents couldn’t come here because of COVID. So I had to spend a lot of time by myself and that was very frustrating. With that being said, I started thinking about not fighting anymore.” [via BJPenn.com]
Claudia Gadelha made her UFC debut on the 16th of July, 2014. She beat Tina Lahdemaki on debut and ran into Joanna Jędrzejczyk straight away. A split decision loss to Joanna set the tone for a rematch.
Following a win over Jessica Aguilar, Gadelha fought Joanna for the women’s strawweight championship. However, she was beaten by a unanimous decision.
Gadelha never really came into the title picture after that, but she still beat some big names. Her record reads 18 wins and 5 losses. She was never knocked out or submitted in her career.
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