Two highly ranked strawweight fighters will face each other at the upcoming UFC Fight Night from Krakow, Poland on April 11th. Aisling Daly(15-5) currently ranked ninth faces the number two ranked Claudia Gadelha(12-1) coming off her first lost. This should be an outstanding match up between between the gifted striker and grappler.

Daly had a somewhat successful run in the TUF house but more should be expected from her as she is happy to be back at home training with her team. Gadelha is coming off her first lost to the gifted striking Joanna Jedrzejczyk, which makes you wonder who she will do with the bigger Aisling who is also outstanding on her feet. This is the only female bout scheduled so far for the card headlines by Gabriel Gonzaga and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic.

A confident and game Daly asked Sean Selby for an opponent for the debut in Poland and he was happy to oblige. Taking on the second ranked fighter in the world is a big challenge, but she seems primed for it and had this to say: “I think a lot of girls would shy away from her but I was really excited to get this fight. I didn’t think I would get offered a fight like this for a while so I was really happy to get Claudia."

“I wouldn’t say it’s a huge step up in competition but it is good for me to come up against somebody like her. In my mind, there are three of four of us in the division that are up there and she’s one of them. So I’m delighted - sometimes you get what you ask for!

“I know Claudia has a good record. She’s from Jose Aldo’s camp too so that’s obviously funny with Conor due to fight Jose. She has some good wins on her record, but a lot of her wins lately have been decisions. She’s good everywhere; she’s dangerous.

Aisling feels she may hold an advantage because of the stamina issues with the sculpted Gadelha. It will be curious to see Claudia’s game plan in this match, and this writer hopes she allows the stand up fight to happen. As strawweight champion Carla Esparza showed us all it helps to add to your dynamic wrestling with an furious striking attack to balance it out, Everyone knows Claudi has those type of skills so it will be intriguing to see how long she is willing to stand with Daly before going to the mat. Not that it fares better as Aisling’s last win was by a submission.

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About the author
Travis Brown
Travis has been covering the sport of mixed martial arts for the past three years. He has been a fan of combat sports all of his life and looks to bring his bettors perspective to the Vavel family. Mixed Martial Arts is a global sports and there is no better place for it than Vavel.