The no. 1 ranked strawweight contender Claudia Gadelha is still on the mend from an injured finger, and won’t be ready to fight for another five months.
As reported on UFC Tonight on Wednesday, Gadelha still cannot close her hand after suffering injured ligaments, therefore impeding her training. Her team said that she will be ready to compete again in February.
There have been conflicting reports as to when Gadelha might be ready to compete again. When the UFC announced that current strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk would be ready to defend her title at UFC 195 on January 2, Gadelha tweeted out that she would be ready whenever Jedrzejczyk was.
That won’t be the case, especially now that Jedrzejczyk is defending her title at UFC 193 in Melbourne, Australia on Nov. 14. She’ll be facing Valerie Letourneau in the co-main event, with women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey defending her title against Holly Holm in the featured bout.
Gadelha made her case to rematch Jedzejczyk by dominating Jessica Aguilar at UFC 190 in Rio de Janeiro. After coming over from Invicta FC, she has gone 2-1 in the UFC, with her lone loss a split-decision against Jedzejczyk in December.