At UFC on Fox: Shevchenko vs. Pena, UFC fans would be treated to a classic matchup of striker vs grappler, blended perfectly with the winner receiving a title shot against current champion Amanda Nunes. The question lingered as the walkouts began, would the well rounded and tenacious striking ability of Valentina “The Bullet” Shevchenko beat the aggressive and dogged grappling of Julianna “The Venezuelan Vixen” Pena?
The end result was strange in the manner of victory, as Shevchenko defeated Pena via armbar in the second round. This was Shevchenko’s sixth submission in her 16-fight career. Her last submission was back in 2006, against Yulia Nemtsova by way of ezekiel choke at Professional Free Fight.
“Pena is a good fighter, she’s wild, but I’m a master”
Kyrgyzstani-Peruvian native Shevchenko has been on the UFC circuit for two years, entering the octagon in December 2015 against Sarah Kaufman – a fight she won by split decision.
After Kaufman, Shevchenko embarked on an expedition to the top of bantamweight rankings by taking on now current UFC bantamweight champion, Nunes an ex-champion in Holly Holm, and the No. 2 ranked fighter in the division, Pena. Shevchenko’s UFC record stands currently at (4-1) and she has only lost twice in sixteen MMA bouts.
Outside of the Octagon, Shevchenko is a decorated veteran in the world of martial arts, a 17-time champion in muay thai and kickboxing. Shevchenko’s kickboxing record exhibits her level of experience, she has 61 fights, 58 wins and two losses. Shevchenko has also participated in professional boxing, going 2-0 by way of unanimous decision and technical knock out.
From contender to champion.
To gauge if Shevchenko is ready for a second fight against Nunes and to become champion, you have to take into account her previous fights against Pena, Holm and Nunes. This is where where I believe each fight displayed Shevchenko’s skill-set and why she will make the transition from contender to champion. But there are limitations to her productivity.
For the Pena fight, Shevchenko proved she can work off the cage in the clinch, executing sweeps and landing nicely into her opponent’s guard. When in the guard, Shevchenko works tirelessly to gain a dominant position and initiate ground and pound. To finish Pena, Shevchenko showcased her awareness on the ground, exhibiting beautiful rotation in her hips to gain position of Pena’s arm, piling on tension until Pena tapped.
With Holm, it was a unanimous decision victory, so you have to look at the fight overall.
The first round did not go to plan for Shevchenko. However, she did show tremendous heart and good recovery skills after a first round knockdown. The tables began to turn from rounds two to five, where Shevchenko exhibited her counter attacking skill by using the superman punch and spinning back fist, mixed in with beautiful low kicks to keep Holm’s confidence at rock bottom. Not an exciting performance by Shevchenko, but, it did show that Shevchenko can stick to a gameplan that nullified Holm’s credentials as being the division’s best striker.
In the Nunes bout, despite it being a unanimous decision loss, Shevchenko lost a very close first round because she was a little too patient and conceded in the striking exchanges. The biggest takeaway for Shevchenko was that Nunes started to fade in the latter half of the fight. With a depleted gas tank, this allowed Shevchenko to turn the tables on Nunes and go on the attack for extended periods of the fight and to a fair degree, battered Nunes until the bell sounded in the third round.
This experience will have been a massive learning curve for Shevchenko.
“My toughest opponent I think was Valentina Shevchenko. I got tired in the third round. It was a weird fight for me. I never fought anyone tougher. I never trained for a girl like that, but after that fight I have been training every day for southpaws”
The limitations for Shevchenko? One would say she is the smallest fighter amongst her peers, standing at 5’ 4”. Comparing that to her last three opponents, those fighters stood relatively taller and fuller than she did.
The other would be that Shevchenko does not impose her will against opponents from the opening bell. With Shevchenko’s extensive striking arsenal and experience, she should be able use kicks or punches as building blocks for combinations to keep her opponent busy. However, Shevchenko is more than happy to sit behind single punches or kicks, which leaves distance that a tall and rangy opponent could utilize. Holm tried to achieve this in the fifth round of their fight and Nunes already exploited this in their first meeting. But, Nunes’ prowess in the striking department has evolved since, just ask Ronda Rousey.
I am not a fortune teller, but I believe Shevchenko is the ‘Bullet’ that kills ‘The Lioness’ in 2017.
