What is a draw in the UFC? Alexa Grasso vs. Valentina Shevchenko 2 title fight draw sets unique promotional record
Alexa Grasso returned to the octagon this past weekend to make her first women's flyweight championship defense in a highly anticipated rematch against Valentina Shevchenko.
Having won their previous encounter earlier this year, Grasso retained her title after the fight was declared a split draw. For those unaware, a draw in the UFC can happen in three ways, i.e., unanimous draw, majority draw, and split draw.
A unanimous draw happens when all three judges scoring the fight have scored the fight as a draw. A majority draw happens when one judge has scored the fight in favor of a fighter while the other two have scored the fight as a draw.
In the case of a split draw like that of the rematch between Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko, two judges scored the fight each in favor of Grasso and Shevchenko, while the third judge had the fight as a draw.
With this, the UFC women's flyweight championship matchup at Noche UFC became the sixth-ever championship fight in the modern-day UFC to be declared a draw.
B.J. Penn vs. Caol Uno in 2003, Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard in 2011, Tyron Woodley vs. Stephen Thompson in 2016, Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno in 2020, and Jan Blachowicz vs. Magomed Ankalaev in 2022 are the only other title fights to have been declared as a draw in the UFC prior to Grasso vs. Shevchenko.
Is Alexa Grasso open to a trilogy against Valentina Shevchenko after the Noche UFC draw?
The rather controversial result of the rematch between Alexa Grasso and Valentino Shevchenko has laid the perfect foundation for a trilogy fight between the two. However, the Mexican first choice seems to be to fight someone else, as she does not want to hold up the division.
Upon being asked about a potential trilogy against 'Bullet' during the post-fight press conference, Grasso revealed that she's open to any challenge that the UFC presents her with but would like to give someone else a chance:
"I won't stop the division, you know? There are a lot of girls fighting you know, to have this opportunity like I did. So, I will not like to stop it but whatever the UFC says, I'm in."
Catch her comments in the video below (44:04):