Dakota Ditcheva was impressed by Valentina Shevchenko’s performance in her win over Zhang Weili in November.
Shevchenko (26-4-1 MMA, 15-3-1 UFC) successfully defended her flyweight title against the former strawweight champion in the co-main event of UFC 322 at Madison Square Garden in New York, equaling Amanda Nunes’s record for the most wins in UFC women’s title fights (11).
With Weili having dominated the 115-pound division in recent years, she was widely viewed as the biggest test of Shevchenko’s career going into the fight. That notion was quickly dispelled, however, as “Bullet” dominated Weili over 25 minutes to cement her status as the greatest fighter in flyweight division history.
“Yeah, because I did really rate Weili as well,” PFL star Ditcheva (15-0) responded when Ariel Helwani asked this week if she was surprised by how dominant Shevchenko was during the fight. “But again, this is why we've got weight classes, right? I think that the size difference was just too big and Valentina is just for me, she's the goat…like (you) can put her in front of anyone and her distance control, the way she fights, her strategy when she's in there just is above anybody else's. She adapts so quickly to someone's style.”
Having racked up three consecutive decision wins over Alexa Grasso, Manon Fiorot, and now Weili, Shevchenko has faced some criticism for adopting a more pragmatic approach since reclaiming the title after a minor setback against Grasso in 2023. At 37 years old and after breaking numerous records during her UFC tenure, the Kyrgyzstan-born fighter is no longer securing stoppage victories at the rate she once did. However, Ditcheva believes that is simply part of the territory when a champion reigns as long as Shevchenko has.
“She wants to go out on top,” Ditcheva said. “Has anyone really done what she's done? She's completed all the rubies on her belt, plus more. She's at the top. The age of her and the way she's fighting at the moment is just incredible anyway, but I suppose people want that killer in them, don't they? They don't want people to lose it. But when there's money on the line, people change.
“For me, I hope one day I don't do that. I feel like the switch in me that I have probably would never kind of just play it safe. I would just always be that person that kind of goes forward. But then again. When you're someone like Valentina and you've got that much of a legacy, she doesn't want to go out without being on top, right?”
