Claudia Gadelha already has a target for “when” for her octagon return. It’s the “who” that’s proving to be the difficult part.

Gadelha (15-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) is in a tough spot in the UFC’s 115-pound division. Currently ranked No. 2 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s strawweight rankings, and No. 1 in the official UFC rankings, she’s behind only one person in both lists: undefeated champion Joanna Jedrzejzcyk (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) .

Gadelha is also fresh off back-to-back wins – the most recent quick and dominant over fellow top contender Karolina Kowalkiewicz (10-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC), who’d just come off a five-round title shot herself.

Under normal circumstances, Gadelha would be a shoe-in for a title shot. Problem is, she already fought the champ – twice. And while the first bout was a non-title affair with a controversial split-decision ending, the second one was a clear five-round loss. Gadelha, in fact, is the first one to say that Jedrzejzcyk is not in the cards for her right now.

But that puts her in a bit of a bind.

“I intend to fight in September,” Gadelha told MMAjunkie. “I’m waiting for the UFC to get back to me. They’re trying, but it’s that same situation – I can’t find an opponent. It’s kind of annoying. Sometimes I wish I was the (Donald) Cerrone of strawweights. I wanted to get one fight right after the other. But I also understand that the men’s divisions have more options. And my situation at strawweight is very complicated. I wanted to fight again, I wanted to have a fight scheduled.

“I wanted to leave one fight with another one good to go, because that’s my goal in the division. But it’s hard. It’s complicated. There’s not much I can think or say, because all I can do is wait for someone to show up and want to fight. I’ve told the UFC multiple times that I’ll fight anyone in the division. It doesn’t matter who it is. I won’t handpick. But there are no opportunities, no options arising.”

While her octagon future remains muddy, Gadelha is making moves what she can control. After two camps in the U.S. – which led to the wins over Kowalkiewicz at last month’s UFC 212 and Cortney Casey at last November’s UFC Fight Night 100 – the Brazilian contender is now officially moving from Rio de Janeiro, where she’s lived for the past decade, to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

A former Nova Uniao product, Gadelha has made no secret of how well she’s adjusted to her new training regimen both under Greg Luttrell, who’s now her head coach, and at Greg Jackson’s gym. But, ultimately, her decision to make a new life abroad was about more than more advanced facilities and effective training methods.

As much as she loves Brazil, life at home was just too hard.

“I always tell my fighter friends who are still in Rio – it’s like you learn more,” Gadelha said. “You absorb more when you’re not worried, or stressed out. When you’re focused solely on that. In Rio there was traffic, stress, problems with a bunch of things. Everything was expensive. I was worried about a variety of things that got in the way of my training. Sometimes I’d get to the gym upset or late.

“In Albuquerque, it’s a lot more relaxed. I wake up, have breakfast at a big home. Everything is good and a lot different than what I was used to going through in Rio, in Natal (city where she lived for three years) and Mossoro (city of birth). That makes all the difference when it comes to absorbing techniques and learning. Even in physical conditioning, you get more time to rest. You don’t spend so much time in traffic. The whole context is a lot easier abroad.”

While she’s in a tricky situation as far as her current octagon position goes, Gadelha is also in a great place overall in her life. At 28, as one of the leading athletes on the biggest stage of the UFC, she looks back on the much different situation of when she arrived in Rio as a jiu-jitsu champ looking to break into MMA.

“It was very hard for me,” Gadelha said. “I arrived in Rio all by myself. I didn’t have anything. I had only a backpack, a gi and a bunch of dreams. I went to Rio wanting to be a fighter, but I didn’t have opportunities. I fought a lot of jiu-jitsu. I wanted to compete at MMA, but there were no opportunities. So I kept competing in jiu-jitsu, awaiting my shot until that first fight came. I was 18, and I loved it. But I made just enough money to get sneakers to train for the next fight. My purse was 300 reais (around $90.00 U.S.).

“It was very hard to support myself, to train, to eat well, and to fight. Everything was hard. Until I got opponents, and promotions that allowed women to fight – that was hard, too. I went through a lot of difficulties to be able to make it anywhere.”

In spite of all the difficulties, Gadelha managed to persevere not only as an athlete, but to pursue academic endeavors simultaneously. She attended law school and, while she hasn’t yet been able to finish, she’s got only one half of a final paper to turn in before earning a degree. And she’s already in talks with her university to get that done soon.

Being a lawyer, however, was never Gadelha’s dream. Yet, she wanted to apply to become a precinct chief – a position that, in Brazil, demands a degree and passing a highly competitive selection process. For now, with her focus elsewhere, these plans have taken a backseat.

But as Gadelha looks into her new life, they’re not dead just yet.

“I’ve been looking into my documentation in the U.S.” Gadelha said. “I do want to be a police officer. That’s why I went to law school in the first place, not to be a lawyer. And I’ve been studying the possibilities of joining some kind of special forces in the United States.”

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, visit the UFC Rumors section of the site.