After a rather controversial split-decision draw ‘The Bullet’ Valentina Shevchenko is returning to the octagon in an effort to reclaim her lost belt against Alexa Grasso at the Sphere on September 14. Prior to the highly anticipated women’s flyweight clash, the champ shared a few pointers about her opponent’s apparent vulnerability, revealing her detrimental game plan.
During a conversation with MMA Junkies’s Mike Bohn, Grasso ahead of her trilogy mentioned how Shevchenko is killing her own game with the wrong approach.
Being an exceptional counterpuncher with several accolades in Muay Thai, and kickboxing, Grasso says that the Kyrgyz fighter relies too much on her counterstrikes and this style makes her wait too much.
“She has a style where she waits too much. She’s just going back and back and back. I don’t think that’s a good (idea). If you want to get your belt back, I don’t think that’s the way to do that… But she has a fighting style where she’s going back, back, back – I’m not sure that’s going to work. I know exactly what I need to do to secure my win.”
Plus, Shevchenko is known to back-step and move backward during her fights, and this, especially in a close knighted title fight like their last is what actually keeps her from winning. The champ actually wants Valentina to come out swinging, trying to take her head off and turn it into an all-out war.
Credits: Imago
In their first meeting in March of 2023, Grasso had defeated the flyweight queen in the co-main of the evening to capture the belt and ever since has been a dominant force in the division.
This time, she is going up against a familiar opponent. Meanwhile, the champ also mentioned her current relationship with Shevchenko, essentially deeming it as “really weird.”
Grasso’s weird relationship with Shevchenko
Beyond the immense mutual respect for each other after a season serving as rival coaches on Season 32 of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series, the two now seem to have a genuine sense of competitive animosity. While it was Grasso who had the upper hand in the first meeting, the second fight was closely contested with many claiming that Valentina had done enough to take back her belt.
However, with the third fight just a little more than a week away from us, Grasso explained how is her relationship with her Kyrgyz rival.
“We had a lot of faceoffs. Again and again and again. I don’t know. It’s really, really weird. I can tell it’s really weird. But at the end of the day, on fight week, and the day of the fight, things change. We are going to try to kill each other and that’s the most important thing. It’s really cool to be able to meet with her more. We were able to do a lot of stuff together.”
Irrespective of what each fighters think of themselves, UFC 306 is certainly going to be a banger of a card. Who have you got? Can ‘The Bullet’ re-jig her strategy and come back even stronger to reclaim her belt? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
