A major woman’s strawweight clash between two former title contenders, Claudia Gadelha and Karolina Kowalkiewicz has been announced for UFC 212 in Rio De Janeiro on June 3rd.
Gadelha is currently in that same awkward spot that we’ve seen in the past from highly ranked challengers in other divisions like Miesha Tate and Urijah Faber in that she’s now lost twice to current champion Joanna Jedrzeczyk twice, yet she’s still good enough to beat just about anyone else in the 115lb division.
As such she currently still holds down the No.1 contender spot in the division and is coming off a unanimous decision win over Cortney Casey last time out.
Kowalkiewicz provides ‘Claudinha’ with a serious threat however, as she is in a similar position, having beaten the likes of Rose Namajunas and Randa Markos during the initial 10-0 start to her career, before coming up short against Jedrzeczyk at UFC 205 in November.
Kowalkiewicz is now ranked No.2 in the division and so it makes a lot of sense both stylistically and from a rankings perspective to have her face Gadelha next, especially with the No.3 ranked Jessica Andrade now having been booked to fight the champion at UFC 211.
Gadelha Vs Kowalkiewicz is the second fight to be confirmed for UFC 212, which will be headlined by a featherweight title unification bout between Jose Aldo and Max Holloway.
