THEIR SCHEDULED UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) bout will no longer go ahead, but the rivalry between Aisling Daly and Claudia Gadelha has merely intensified since the fight was cancelled.
The pair were due to meet next weekend at UFC Fight Night 64 in Poland, but it emerged last week that Gadelha had pulled out due to a back injury. Daly will face Randa Markos in Montreal on 25 April instead.
Following her withdrawal, Gadelha — a team-mate of UFC featherweight world champion Jose Aldo — posted on Instagram that “Daly talks shit just like her training partner (Conor) McGregor”.
However, when asked about Gadelha’s comments at Tuesday’s UFC fan Q&A in Dublin, Daly said: “There isn’t any beef, and there wasn’t. She (Gadelha) released a statement after she pulled out of the fight saying that I’ve been talking shit. I actually think she was just confusing me with Conor.
“I heard somebody shouting there, steroids… I don’t know anything about that, but we were both due to be tested, neither of us actually got around to being tested, and she was gone… so think from that what you will.”
Neither Daly nor Gadelha have ever tested positive for banned substances, but the Brazilian today hit back at Ireland’s only female UFC fighter, according to a report from Guilherme Cruz of MMAFighting.com.
Gadelha said: “Aisling said that because she’s not an athlete. I’m a better athlete, more disciplined. I train every day, several times a day, and I take care of my body.
“I believe she said that because I’m fit and she’s fat, she has that big belly. She doesn’t make weight, she’s not an athlete, and is talking s**t.”
Daly missed weight for her UFC debut in December but generally has a good track record on the scales. Gadelha and the 27-year-old Dubliner compete in the strawweight division, which has a 116lbs limit (115lbs for championship bouts).
