Valentina Shevchenko
Kyrgyzstan’s most famous fighting export, [autotag]Valentina Shevchenko[/autotag] has cemented herself as one of the best female fighters on the planet and, thanks to the inception of the UFC’s women’s flyweight division, “Bullet” was finally able to show just how dominant an athlete she can be when fighting at her optimal weight.
Shevchenko will face a rising crop of young contenders in the next few years as she bids to continue her lockdown of the title at 125 pounds, but she is also perfectly placed to take part in cross-divisional superfights. A bout with reigning UFC strawweight champion Zhang Weili wouldn’t be much of a stretch, and one suspects it’s something we could potentially see within the next 18 months, while the prospect of a third matchup with Nunes might also be a possibility a little further down the line.
But Shevchenko is showing no signs of slowing down and seems even more businesslike, even more focused and even more dangerous as she heads into the 2020s looking to boss her division, and potentially the one above it, in the years to come.
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