FS 64 – Instant Classic: Claudia Gadelha vs. Angela Hill (transcript) (Patreon)

UFC on ESPN 8 came and went, and it’s the third in the promotion’s pandemic series. I know that’s not what they’re officially calling it, but I don’t know what else to refer it to. This event also took place in Jacksonville, Florida at the VyStar Veterans Memorial, which makes it the third event within an 8-day time period. I could be wrong, but I don’t know if an MMA promotion has ever done that. Even sports like basketball and baseball will alternate locations during playoffs, but to have three in a row at the same place? Even when PRIDE and K-1 were running tournaments, they wrapped things up in two days, back to back, and called it quits. Logistically, what the UFC has pulled off is quite an accomplishment and massive credit should be given to the staff and crew. I would love to heap on more praise, but you know, the whole COVID-19 thing along with people needlessly dying and not getting paid keeps me from doing so. 

In one of the more interesting fights on the card, Claudia Gadelha took on Angela Hill in a strawweight match-up. The strawweight division is easily the most stacked for women in the UFC, without an argument for flyweight, bantamweight, or featherweight. This means that if someone is able to build up a streak within the division, it means significantly more than the other three weight classes. Put it this way, even though women’s featherweight is a division, there is NO ONE ranked there. I’m not kidding, go to the UFC rankings on their own site and you’ll see Amanda Nunes listed as champion, and not a single women put down under her. Speaking of Nunes, she has wins over the #1 and #2 ranked contenders at bantamweight, and the rest of the division is going to have a difficult time dethroning someone that knocked out Cris Cyborg in under a minute. But then again, bantamweight isn’t the only division with an unstoppable champion. Women’s flyweight is currently ruled by Valentina Shevchenko, and in her five fights in the division, she has looked nothing less than dominant. This leads us back to the strawweights.

Despite the depth of the division, women’s strawweight isn’t the oldest in the promotion, that distinction belongs to bantamweight, the weight class that Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche ushered in. So far, there are only four weight classes for women in the UFC: 115, 125, 135, and 145. Out of these four, only the 115 exist solely for women, since there are corresponding men’s weight classes for flyweight, bantamweight, and featherweight. It could be that much like the lower weight classes for men’s MMA, women’s MMA also has more complete fighters the further down you go in size. Instead of being able to get by with one or two specialties, a deeper skill set (or at least bag of tricks) is needed to succeed in the strawweight weight class.    

Consider the women competing at 115 pounds: Joanna Jędrzejczyk, Rose Namajunas, Jessica Andrade, and the current champ, Zhang Weili. Each offer a compelling skill set and have distinct styles that are totally different, but effective all the same. It’s also the only weight class where you look at the rankings and can get excited about the potential matchups. One of them being Gadelha vs Hill.  

The fight itself was pretty exciting and back and forth, so let’s give the respect it deserves and break it down.

In the first round, there were lots of feinting and shuffling from Hill, who cornered Gadelha and moved her towards the fence. This has been present in most of Hill’s recent fights, and it’s good to see she hasn’t abandoned the partner that got her to the dance. Unfortunately for Hill, she also seems to have kept one of her bad habits of staying stationary after throwing her right hand.

If Hill can finish off her 1-2’s with a hook to the body or head, it can do wonders for her. We saw in the last UFC PPV whenever Justin Gaethje ended his combinations with a left hook or threw it as a counter, he hurt Tony Ferguson and was able to move away without sacrificing mobility and foot placement. It allowed him to hurt him without squaring up his hips.

Gadelha’s training with Mark Henry definitely showed in the early moments of this fight, as her jabs are crisp and catch Hill as she comes in without minding her distance and feints. Whenever Hill pressured Gadelha by marching forward instead of setting up her footwork, she ate crisp jabs and hooks for her troubles. Towards the end of the first round, Gadelha is able to get Hill to the ground.

It’s a testament to Hill’s improvements that she’s able to survive, she used to get ragdolled to the ground by the likes of Carla Esparza but is now able to defend takedowns and work her way back up to the feet while defending submissions. Scooting back to the fence to turtle and wall walk back up is a good combination of what Nick Diaz and Robert Whittaker do whenever facing superior grapplers who want to hold them down. The fence is an excellent ally whenever you want to cover a side and prevent someone from sinking in a hook or spinning around your back. It’s clear that the takedowns and higher volume of strikes won this round for Gadelha.

The moment the second round starts, something seems off. Right away, Gadelha is a bit more flat footed and has trouble with the in and out movements of Hill. This culminates in Hill dropping Gadelha with a right cross. The punch lands so hard it spun Gadelha before she hit the canvas.

Hill also feeds Gadelha the lead leg whenever pressuring Gadelha so if she does attempt another takedown, it’ll be a single leg that’s easier to defend. If that strategy sounds familiar, it’s because Jose Aldo uses it all the time against grapplers. Why square up and give them your hips when you can just bait them with one leg?

Another low energy move that Hill loves using are stutter step movements to throw off the timing of Gadelha, who would whiff at air whenever she thought Hill would be close enough to get hit. Great strikers are able to lure you into anticipating a false movement and attacking early so that they can catch you off guard. Valentina Shevchenko in particular is great at this set up, and she was able to trick Joanna Jędrzejczyk multiple times by presenting false movement and distance.

Hill’s ability to stay on the feet came down to many different tools that she obviously spent time sharpening: pummeling for underhooks, dropping her weight against the fence and reversing position, framing Gadelha’s head with her forearms, and sticking her forehead into Gadelha’s jaw. It’s strangely reminiscent of all the changes that Israel Adesanya made when he got in the UFC. The difference is that Adesanya got much better at TDD at an accelerated rate, while it took Hill a bit longer. But hey, everyone’s journey is different, right?

It’s odd seeing Gadelha get out struck in the second round, and not just because Hill is the busier fighter with a more varied striking arsenal. In round one, Gadelha’s jabs were fast and kept Hill from advancing too much, but a lot of that disappeared in the second round. It’s unclear if the attempted takedowns or knockdown affected her gas tank. Hill actually wasn’t targeting the midsection too much up to this point so it’s not from the body shots.

Perhaps just like Chris Weidman, Gadelha has a seven-minute window where she peaks? This is odd considering this problem wasn’t prevalent in the Randa Markos fight. There’s a strong possibility that this could be more mental than physical, and if things don’t go her way she could be suffering from mental fatigue.

Another bad habit of Hill that does surface again is leaning in to her left side whenever she punches, and Gadelha catches her with straights and left hooks even without looking because she can tell which way Hill’s head will fall towards. With a solid muay Thai background, it’s odd to see Hill of all people suffer from this tendency.

Surprisingly, Hill didn’t start letting the kicks go until the second round. It could be the fear of giving Gadelha easy takedowns, but this worry is largely unfounded. McGregor threw a barrage of front kicks to Chad Mendes and even though he got taken down, they weren’t off these kicks. Front kicks are hard to time if you’re trying to catch them, and because they come at you so fast and to your stomach, they’re great at maintaining distance and draining the gas tank.

In the third and final round, things came down to the wire. Whenever Hill threw hooks to the body and goes on top afterwards, she had success. Gadelha attempted singles with very little commitment, most of the time it only got Hill to step back and not actively defend with sprawls.

As they exchanged in the pocket, it’s fascinating to see the contrast in priorities. Hill fired off as many punches as she can at different targets, whereas Gadelha visibly lowered her level to add more power into her strikes.

An underrated tool of Hill that I wish she used more is her intercepting elbow. It comes upwards and slammed into Gadelha’s face every time she got in too close. There’s a blink and you’ll miss it moment in last 2 minutes, and it’s when Gadelha shoved Hill back towards the fence after throwing a jab. It looks funny, but if properly disguised it’s a sneaky way to throw someone off balance and keep them from countering. It’s so effective that Giorgio Petrosyan uses it quite often, but he’s so fast that opponents don’t notice and the referee don’t have time to warn him of the infraction.

Since we’re talking about kickboxing, let’s take a moment to appreciate Gadelha’s kicking game. Gadelha’s kicks aren’t pretty but they do damage. She’s able to hurt Hill and keep her in place whenever she threw inside and outside low kicks. They’re not as nice as Jędrzejczyk or Shevchenko, but they don’t need to be, especially if the goal is just to keep someone standing still.

When it was all said and done, Gadelha won the fight by split decision. It wasn’t the worst scorecard in UFC history, let alone strawweight, and the action was close enough that it honestly could have gone either way. What does make everything more interesting are the potential future match-ups.

Gadelha may have gotten the W, but it’s not as if its smooth sailings from here. Entering the fight, Hill was ranked #15 in the division and she had just given the #6 ranked fighter an extremely close fight. Right above Gadelha (excluding the champion), only Rose Namajunas and Tatiana Suarez haven’t crossed paths with her. As for everyone else? They have a win over Gadelha, meaning if she wants another title shot, she’s going to have to even the score with a former opponent or try her luck against Namajunas or Suarez.

Hill lost a close decision, but the future still looks bright for her. If she could tweak a few more things in her game, she could be a problem for anyone in the top five. As for now, there are some fun fights that can be made that are appropriate, given her ranking. Alexa Grasso and Felice Herrig are fun striking match-ups, and both ladies are coming off losses as well. Amanda Ribas also looks like she can be someone to look out for in the division, and a fight against Hill could serve as a good barometer for her skill set.

Even if you’re not a huge fan of women’s MMA in general, the strawweight division is definitely worth your attention. It has exciting fighters, fun personalities, and intriguing style match-ups. Plus, with legitimately talented competitors that could be champion on any given night, why wouldn’t you want to tune in?