Kyrgyz sensation Valentina Shevchenko aka ‘The Bullet’ is a force to be reckoned with in the octagon. While Marvel’s great villain, Thanos got his hands on the infinity stones the wrong way, Shevchenko has also acquired hers the hard way – recapturing the belt from Alexa Grasso. And in doing so, the elegant fighter made history becoming the first person in the promotion to obtain all eight rubies on her belt plate.
Delighted to learn about her updated belt plate, Shevchenko took things to social media, posting a collage as a story post on her IG. She also included a brief write-up, revealing how much she yearned for it.
“Hard to express the feelings of receiving the image of my UFC Champions plate a few moments ago. All 8 rubies – each a testament to sweat, struggle, and triumph. For me, this is more than achievement it’s the spirit of the true martial arts alive and roaring within me. Can’t wait to finally touch and have the honor wear the plate with The Belt!”
Do note that neither Alex Pereira nor Islam Makhachev have yet achieved this feat, and neither has anybody else in the promotion’s history. The light heavyweight champion Alex ‘Poatan’ Pereira has three while a fourth one might be on the way taking into account his recent title defense against Khalil Rountree.
As for the pound-for-pound king, Makhachev, the lightweight champ has four stones to his name, all signaling his title defenses.
A ruby is added to a fighter’s belt instead of a new belt after each of their title defenses. And Shevchenko is the first champion in the history of the promotion to have 8.
In the meantime, the flyweight queen also opened up about a potential move to bantamweight following her stellar UFC 306 win.
Shevchenko gets real about bantamweight move
Avenging her loss to Alexa Grasso, Shevchenko reclaimed her belt in exciting fashion and defeated the former foe in a trilogy bout in the Sphere at Noche UFC. Subsequently, following her win, many fans speculated that the newly crowned champion would face fellow striker Manon Fiorot next.
But as it turns out, she has bigger goals to achieve at bantamweight! While the 36-year-old has shown interest in moving up the weight class, she has confirmed that it wouldn’t be a quick, hasty decision and said that she will need to take some time to put on weight the proper way.
As per a report by MMA News, she said,
“I’m not discarding any opportunities. I’m not saying something like, ‘No!’ But yeah, when I recover from the last fight and we go back and see my team, my manager…we will make the decision. Probably for me to go up to bantamweight, it would have to pass some time to build up back my muscles. Spending so long at flyweight, I kind of get smaller. … But if I decide to move up, it has to be right.”
With her attention devoted to Grasso and the belt for one, maybe one and a half years, Shevchenko revealed that she quite didn’t think about any future moves but now with the belt secured, it might be the right time to move up to bantamweight to get some new exciting challenges.
