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#4. Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Claudia Gadelha
When Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Claudia Gadelha first crossed paths, both were undefeated prospects in the UFC's strawweight division. The hype surrounding their initial clash revolved around the stylistic matchup.
It was a brief return to the style versus style bouts of the UFC's early days. Jędrzejczyk was a highly-skilled kickboxer with unyielding defensive wrestling, while Gadelha was a powerful wrestler with a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.
The bout was a title eliminator, ending in a split-decision win for Jędrzejczyk, which Gadelha contested, claiming to have been robbed by the judges. While Jędrzejczyk went on to capture the strawweight title from Carla Esparza in dominant fashion, Gadelha built herself back up.
Recovering from the first loss of her MMA career, she rebounded with a convincing win over Jessica Aguilar. By the time she was ready for a title shot, Jędrzejczyk had already recorded two title defenses.
The two women were then booked as coaches on The Ultimate Fighter. The animosity between the two worsened during filming, with Gadelha going so far as claiming Jędrzejczyk's intensity was due to frustrations with her partner in the bedroom.
When the two faced each other in their hotly-anticipated rematch, Jędrzejczyk won more convincingly than she had the first time, closing the door on her chapter with Claudia Gadelha.
#3 Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Rose Namajunas
Before Jędrzejczyk's first fight with Rose Namajunas, she was the undefeated strawweight queen fresh off a dominant win over one of the division’s scariest fighters, Jessica Andrade.
Namajunas, by contrast, had just managed her first win since losing to Karolina Kowalkiewicz, another Polish kickboxer plying her trade in MMA, who herself had lost to Jędrzejczyk.
A 6-3 fighter at that point in her career, with only decision wins and submissions on her record, hardly anyone gave Namajunas a chance against Jędrzejczyk.
How, many wondered, would Namajunas drag Jędrzejczyk to the ground to implement her submission game? Better wrestlers had tried but failed. Those who did manage to secure takedowns could never keep her grounded.
Thus, when the fight came to be and Namajunas showed improved striking and jaw-dropping distance management en route to a shocking 1st round TKO win, everyone in attendance was shocked.
Jędrzejczyk tapped to strikes and Namajunas was the new strawweight champion. Jędrzejczyk dealt with the first loss of her career badly, first claiming she never tapped to strikes despite video evidence showing otherwise.
She chalked up the loss to merely being caught and claimed that Namajunas had no power, all while swearing that she was still the strawweight queen. Ready to avenge her first career loss, Jędrzejczyk was given an immediate rematch.
Their second outing was a much closer affair. Still, Jędrzejczyk lost, again struggling to swallow the bitter pill of another failure. This time, it was a split-decision and the former champion was adamant she had won. She declared herself the division's queen, but she would never again hold UFC gold.
