Former women’s strawweight title challenger Claudia Gadelha believes Jessica Andrade’s win over Rose Namajunas should be overturned.
Andrade became the new strawweight queen when she defeated Namajunas with an epic slam knockout in the headliner of UFC 237 in May. At the time, fans and media questioned the legality of the move.
However, as confirmed by many, including veteran MMA referee John McCarthy, it was deemed legal as Namajunas was attempting a kimura submission and didn’t let go.
When Rose goes for the armbar she has a choice to either let go of the armbar or try and hold onto it and go for the ride that Andrade is going to put on her. There is no illegal slam when a submission is being attempted. It does not matter how she brings her down #AskBJM https://t.co/eBgvzcdZBY
— Big John McCarthy (@JohnMcCarthyMMA) May 12, 2019
However, Gadelha is not convinced, as she believes the fight should have been ruled a no contest due to the nature of the move.
“It should be a no contest,” Gadelha told Helen Yee in a recent interview. “This is not a move, not something you learn in mixed martial arts. Not something you train every day in the gym.
“It’s a brutal move that anybody can do and with the power and strength that Jessica has, it made that damage to Rose which was pretty bad.”
Gadelha also called Andrade’s strength into question, suggesting that it is unfair for other strawweight fighters who have to compete against her.
“I don’t think it’s fair for Jessica to be competing in the strawweight division because she’s so much stronger than all of the girls in there.
“I feel sorry for what happened with Rose. She got this close. It was hard to watch.”
Regardless of what Gadelha thinks, she will be looking to avenge her loss to Andrade from two years ago and challenge for the title again.
“Claudinha” got back to winning ways with a unanimous decision win over Randa Markos, and a few more wins could see her get back into title contention. As for Andrade, she is set for her first title defense against Weili Zhang in the UFC’s first visit to Shenzhen later this year.