Former UFC female bantamweight title challenger, Valentina Shevchenko had a bantamweight title contest at UFC 215 against champ Amanda Nunes and lost the fight via split decision this past September. It was her second loss to Nunes.
After that loss, Shevchenko debuted in newly-founded women’s flyweight class where she defeated Brazilian prospect Priscila Cachoeira on a Fight Night card back in February, now wants her next fight to be a title shot.
Recently, Valentina claims she signed on to fight the champion Nicco Montano on July 28 in Calgary. Montano won Season 26 of “The Ultimate Fighter” back in December when she scores a unanimous decision over Roxanne Modafferi to become the inaugural UFC women’s 125-pound champ. Earlier this month, Montano took to social media to claim that she was recovering from a tonsillectomy that has been preventing her from training.
During a recent episode of The MMA Hour, Shevchenko expressed her frustrations on newly crowned champ Montano and insisted she should step up and defend the belt or vacate it. (Via MMAFighting)
“Not yet, we are not at that point [Montano vacating the title]. But I think it would be very right to do things like this because if you are not ready to fight, if you don’t want to fight, you have to leave the belt — you cannot hold it,” she said
“If you are feeling that you have health issues and you cannot fight for a long time you just have to leave it. When you come back you have a right to fight for this belt again. It’s not the right thing to just hold [the belt] and say it’s mine forever. Either you are fighting and defending or you should step out.”
The ace Muay Thai champion feels that Montano is ducking her and may be trying to play the waiting game in order to have Shevchenko take another fight.
“Yes, I feel a bit like she is [avoiding me], but I also think it could be her strategy. I don’t know if they have approached her for a date at the end of the summer, if not maybe she will accept it, but nobody can be sure if she will be fighting by then,” said Shevchenko, who is 1-0 at 125 pounds.
“Maybe at the very last second she could say that she still has some kind of injury and she cannot fight. Maybe it will happen, so I will continue to do my job and keep training. I think another part of her plan is her thinking that I will lose my patience and ask for another fight. Then I will fight another fight and she will be expecting that something will happen in this fight. I’m waiting for my title fight. It will happen.”
UFC on FOX 30 is set to take place on July 28 from inside Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
