Cláudia Gadelha is not someone you want to cross. She isn’t a celebrity in the mixed martial arts world for nothing. To face her is to adventure through hell. She will dance about you. She will disintegrate you. Her idea of adventure isn’t mai tais at the beach, it is sweat and blood; her idea of an adventure is a good fight.
You can travel all around the world and you’d be hard to find a chick tougher than her. Like I said, don’t cross her. What Felice Herrig is doing in Cláudia’s crosshairs, I do not know, but I’d get clear if I were her. The beef Cláudia has with Felice is in the way she presents herself, to state it boldly, as slutty. Felice is using the old advertising trope of sex sells, and Cláudia is sick of her beautiful sport being demoralized by beautifying anything other than the sport itself. It’s the divergence from the game that is what’s upsetting. It isn’t about beautiful women fighting each other‑that’s what mud wrestling in sleazy bars and Frat house basements are for‑it’s about how these women are beautiful in the discipline and tenacity of their fighting. It’s about the craft and not the brand.
Cláudia Gadelha is one of the best strawweight fighters out there, and she is the youngest Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt in her acclaimed school, Nova Uniao, where she studies under fighting greats like José Aldo.
I personally would never want to adventure into the ring with her. She’s on her way to a title shot. And I believe her argument against Felice Herrig’s ringside antics are just. Too much gets glorified and saturated in modern media. Fighting is a sport as old as man, and one that is complicated and varied. There is vast beauty in the different styles people use to fight. Fighting requires the grace of a ballerina with the claws and teeth of a wild animal. Women fighters shouldn’t get attention for their looks, the viewer should be educated on the intricacies of fighting, and these women should get attention for their performance.
