Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bantamweight striker Valentina Shevchenko is still the division’s No. 1 contender, thanks to a razor-thin decision loss to reigning champion Amanda Nunes at the UFC 215 pay-per-view (PPV) event earlier this month in Edmonton.
More on that fight here.
But don’t expect “Bullet” to be speeding back to a 135-pound rematch, especially since “Lioness” is taking the rest of the year off to have sinus surgery. Instead, Shevchenko will likely drop down to the promotion’s newly-created flyweight division.
From her conversation with Submission Radio:
“You know, now I’m thinking to move to 125, and I think more probably my next fight it will be in this division 125. It’s my natural weight. Just a little bit of cutting and it will be everything perfect. Because, in my Muay Thai fights I was fighting every time at 125, (except) just (in) like the last year I was moving a little bit up in weight class, it was 130. So I feel very comfortable at 125. And even at 125, we can have like opponents (that are) very tall, but of course it will be the same physical conditions, the same head, the same size arms and everything, the same like mine.”
Maybe she can fight the winner of this.
Shevchenko (14-3) has just two losses since joining the promotion back in late 2015, both of them to Nunes. If she doesn’t get an immediate title shot at 125 pounds, I have to imagine she’s just one win away.
Time will tell.