Women’s Strawweights
Claudia Gadelha (17-4) vs. Alexa Grasso (11-3)Advertisement
Gadelha is certainly in a transitional phase in her career, but it remains to be seen if she is transitioning back to contender status or hastening the end of her relevance. As the UFC’s strawweight division got off the ground, Gadelha was a clear No. 2 to Joanna Jedrzejczyk while the Polish fighter dominated the division. Some felt Gadelha even won the fight that earned Jedrzejczyk her shot at the title, and “Joanna Champion” was the only fighter to hand the Brazilian a loss through the first 17 fights of her career. However, the two bouts against Jedrzejczyk showed the flaws in Gadelha’s approach. While Gadelha was typically able to overpower opponents with her physical strength, it came at the expense of her gas tank. This was particularly true of the second fight between the two—a title bout that saw Gadelha control the champion for the better part of two rounds before badly giving away the last three. Gadelha rebounded well enough from that loss for a few more fights, but a 2017 loss to Jessica Andrade—the rare strawweight who managed to overpower Gadelha outright—seems to have gotten the Brazilian inside of her own head. Gadelha now seems woefully concerned with gassing, which in an odd way has left her back in the same spot, only less effectively. She still gets worse as fights go on but more out of excessive caution than anything else. Her 2018 encounter with Nina Ansaroff was the type of fight that Gadelha easily would have won two years prior, but the former title contender seemed unwilling to press the action in later rounds and gave away the fight as a result. Her last bout against Randa Markos was just a miserable affair; Markos was as cautious as Gadelha was, allowing the Brazilian to get away with a low-output striking game on route to a brutal decision victory. There is still the hope that things can click for Gadelha and she can find a perfect middle ground between aggression and caution, but she needs to figure out things quickly, with Grasso as her next challenge.
When the UFC set its sights on expanding into Mexico a few years ago, Grasso figured be a key part of those efforts, and while it has taken her a bit longer than expected to come into her own, she has established herself as a top young talent. Grasso’s boxing remains her bread and butter, but it comes with some flaws. The Mexican fighter can become reliant on the same few techniques, as well as lose track of the flow of the fight as she keys in on particular exchanges. Felice Herrig exposed both of those back in 2017, temporarily derailing Grasso’s hype train with a decision victory, and it has been an inconsistent move up the ladder for the Lobo Gym export ever since. A blowout loss to Tatiana Suarez in 2018 seemed particularly damning, but Grasso rebounded quite well after a long injury layoff to enjoy a breakthrough 2019 campaign. She absolutely pieced up Karolina Kowalkiewicz, and while she narrowly lost her last fight to Carla Esparza in September, she hung tougher than she would have at any earlier part of her career. Grasso gets another opportunity at a win over a prominent veteran here, and she looks more than ready for the task.
For all of Grasso’s improvements, her defensive wrestling is still somewhat of a weakness, which means this is Gadelha’s fight to lose. Unfortunately for Gadelha, she seems more than willing to lose fights lately. Gadelha’s recent struggles are somewhat reminiscent of Renan Barao, even if they are not quite as extreme. While Barao would typically start of well enough and then implode at the first sign of resistance from his opponents, Gadelha just takes her foot off the gas pedal and refuses to press her physical advantages in order to prevent gassing out. That figures to happen here, as well, and there is a chance that Gadelha never even gets on track to begin with. Grasso has shown the ability to pick off more plodding fighters at will, and she may be able to get her boxing game going early and often. If Gadelha had shown any willingness in recent fights to press her clinch game and grappling, the former title contender would be an easy pick, but it is impossible to have any faith in the Brazilian at the moment. The pick is Grasso via decision.
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