Flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko and Alexa Grasso made history with their trilogy fight at UFC 306. Shevchenko regained her belt and tile after defeating Grasso via unanimous decision.
However, the fighter was shocked when she saw the number of professional fighters who bet against her. Shevchenko believed she was winning during the earlier round of their first fight, but she got caught in a submission in the fourth round. Their consecutive fight ended with a split draw, but Shevchenko planned to regain her title in their trilogy match.
“Surprisingly for me, many UFC fighters, many pro fighters when they had their picks before our third fight they said ‘Grasso … oh Grasso.’ It was kind of one-sided,” Shevchenko told MMA Fighting.
“It was a little bit surprising for me that I would take it from people who don’t know much about martial arts, and they just want to see stupid in the striking, like [finding out] who has a stronger chin, a stronger head and it doesn’t involve too much technique, too much fighter IQ, too much of the character of the fighter. I would take it from those people but when pro fighters say that, it was like, oh my God. There’s something wrong with this world. That’s another reason I had to show domination. I had to show I’m superior in every field.”
The 36-year-old was appalled by the lack of belief in her and eager to prove herself to naysayers. She felt a lot of the media attention was on her rival due to the fight card being built to celebrate Mexico’s Independence Day. Alexa Grasso—the only Mexican champion—was in the spotlight for the most part, and Shevchenko was pretty much forgotten about.
“When constantly, over the year, they’re showing the best moments of one fighter, and it doesn’t show anything from the other fighter, but the people they don’t watch the full fight,” Shevchenko lamented. “They just see these small clips and hear them repeated and repeated. It’s kind of like this is how propaganda works. It’s kind of like [hard] to deal with.
“I knew, for example what had happened in the second fight, for example there is a combination, 10 successful hits from my side and one hit from her side. The media to promote the new champion, to celebrate everything, they get rid of all of my successful combinations and just focus on this one good combination from her. They repeat this over and over. People who didn’t watch the fight, and it’s sad, they don’t watch the fight — they just listen and see all these replays and they start to believe that it’s true.”
Shevchenko felt pressure to outmanoeuvre her opponent, so she put up a good fight. She laid her opponent down eight times and defeated her to reclaim the UFC flyweight title.
“I knew going into this fight I cannot let this happen again,” Shevchenko said. “I didn’t have another choice. Don’t let her have these successful combinations, not even one. That’s why I was faster in the striking, she could not respond to my striking, and I want to show my skills on the ground game because hearing all people say, ‘Valentina, you’re a striker, you’re going to be all striking, you don’t have wrestling.’ I don’t know why, but they thought she could out-wrestle me.
“Yeah, definitely it’s because of a lucky submission in the first fight when I lost my belt, and everyone thought, ‘You are just a striker. You don’t have a ground game.’ But I am a martial artist. I am an MMA fighter. I’m a complete fighter. I have to show that you forget. This is my ground game.
“It was no choice for me. They didn’t leave me another one. Just to completely destroy the game plan of Alexa and show that she cannot do anything, not in the striking, not in the wrestling, not in the grappling.”
With her title regained, Shevchenko is looking to the future and is willing to let things go.
“When you win the fight, you’re already passed it. You never look back,” Shevchenko said. “Every time I try to see the best in people, the good in people because I think this is important.
“Everyone can make errors. If you don’t have a chance to correct these errors for the people, how will it work? It never will work. That’s why there’s no trust for each other. I give people a second chance.”
Shevchenko has sight set on another formidable opponent, Manon Fiorot. Fiorot has a seven-fight win streak and is considered one of the future champions of the division.
Due to her match with Alexa Grasso, Shevchenko had not been paying attention to her. However, now that her title has been secured, she is ready to give the other fighters a shot.
“I didn’t pay any attention to (Fiorot)… Now I really have time to, first of all, rest and recover and then start to think about what is next and who is next but as I mentioned, I am a fighter, a Mixed Martial Artist, and for me, it doesn’t matter whoever comes, I’m here,” the ‘Bullet’ commented.
