Claudia Gadelha retires from MMA, cites post concussion syndrome as key factor

Former UFC title challenger Claudia Gadelha has retired from MMA, citing post concussion syndrome as a key factor in her decision.

Gadelha (18-5 MMA) has not competed since November of 2020, where she suffered a unanimous decision loss to Yan Xiaonan. According the Brazilian standout, she suffered nasty concussion during that contest, which caused lingering symptoms for quite some time.

“In November of 2020, after the fight. I had a really bad concussion and I had post concussion syndrome. Which is the symptoms of a concussion for a long period of time. So I was suffering with the symptoms for a little while. It was very frustrating because my headaches were like a knife stabbing the back of my head. I was very nauseous, I was like throwing up and feeling very, very bad. I couldn’t even go for a walk, much less train.” Claudia Gadelha revealed on Instagram. “It was very frustrating. So I took some time away from the sport and I started studying nutrition at IIN. And I kind of fell in love with nutrition and with health and performance. And I started like studying other things, you know because I needed my energy for something else in my life. I am a very energetic person so I needed to do something else.”

Claudia Gadelha continued:

“I found out that without health we are nothing. You know I had to rush to the hospital in the beginning of my concussion, twice. I ended up in the emergency room, twice. You know, so I am here in Las Vegas by myself and my family is in Brazil and this is during COVID so I couldn’t fly to Brazil to go be with my family. Because it was like the beginning of the concussion so I couldn’t fly and my parents couldn’t come here because of COVID. So I had to spend a lot of time by myself and that was very frustrating. With that being said, I started thinking about not fighting anymore.”

Claudia Gadelha challenged for the UFC women’s strawweight title back in 2016, but ultimately fell short in her bid to dethrone then champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk.

During her impressive MMA career ‘Claudinha’ scored wins over Adriana Vieira, Valerie Letoureau, Jessica Aguilar, Cortney Casey, Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Carla Esparza, Randa Markos and Angela Hill.

Claudia Gadelha has already accepted a new position with the UFC where she will help assist with new Brazilian talent.