A great man once said, “I’m not impressed by your performance.” Valentina Shevchenko has taken heed.
The No. 1 ranked Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) women’s batamweight submitted No. 2 ranked Julianna Pena at this past Saturday night’s (Jan. 28) UFC on FOX event. It was Shevchenko’s seventh win in her last eight bouts. The only loss in this stretch was to current women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.
“The Lioness” became just the second UFC women’s bantamweight to successfully defend her title. The first was the woman she demolished at UFC 207, Ronda Rousey. Nunes finished the fight in 48 seconds.
Shevchenko recently appeared on “The MMA Hour” (via MMAMania.com) and she said she wasn’t exactly captivated by Nunes’ performance:
“Yeah, it was very fast and she did what she had to do, so she knew she had more advantage in the striking so she used it. It was a good fight. I’m not impressed. I was waiting, just observing my future opponent. I just tried to see errors or something like this. I cannot put in a lot of emotion of this fight.”
“Bullet” certainly isn’t short on confidence. Shevchenko spoke to the media after her win over Pena and said she believed the outcome of her rematch with Nunes will be “totally different.”
In their first encounter, Nunes bloodied up Shevchenko a bit and took the first two rounds. When “The Lioness” began to fade, “Bullet’s” offense got going and she took the final round. It was too late, however, as Nunes pulled through for a unanimous decision win.
The victory put Nunes at three straight and earned her a title shot against Miesha Tate. “The Lioness” put a beating on “Cupcake” to become the new 135-pound queen. A rematch between Shevchenko and Nunes has not been made official, but it is believed to be inevitable.
