Valentina Shevchenko reveals whether Amanda Nunes trilogy fight is still a possibility
Valentina Shevchenko is sitting on top of the UFC Women's Flyweight throne. A title contender at 135, The Bullet fell short of the title against arguably the biggest adversary of her career - Amanda Nunes.
However, it took a move to the then newly-established Flyweight division, where she faced Joanna Jedrzejczyk to win the vacant title. She has two title defenses to her name so far - first knocking out Jessica Eye in June 2019 before comfortably cruising to a Decision victory over Liz Carmouche - avenging her first career loss from 2010.
She's set to take on Katlyn Chookagian in the co-main event of UFC 247 next month. When asked by theScore (H/T BJPenn.com) about a potential rematch against UFC Bantamweight and Featherweight Champion Amanda Nunes, Shevchenko opened up about the possibility, insisting that while she expects the fight to happen, her current focus is at 125 pounds:
“I don’t know. This year, next year, when. But as I mentioned before, I think the third fight is going to happen sometime in the future. I don’t know when,” Valentina Shevchenko said. “I’m not thinking about it right now because I have a lot of things to be worried about in my own weight class, flyweight.”
Her last fight against Amanda Nunes was in the main event of UFC 215. Nunes beat her by a split decision, but Shevchenko remains convinced that she won the fight. Many agreed with her, but the consensus seemed to be that the fight was close enough to go either way.
While some, including ourselves, felt that Shevchenko won, it wasn't an outrageously large gap that Nunes won by. She thinks that people want to see the trilogy as well:
“Of course, after the last fight against Amanda, the result was totally wrong, totally wrong. People want to see a third fight,” she explained. “I think it’s not about what I want, it’s not about what she wants, it’s behind the lights.”
She concluded by saying that she doesn't know when they will meet again, but when they do, she will be ready. Given the state of Amanda Nunes' dominance and lack of challengers, it may only be a matter of time before they run it back for a third fight.
It's incredible to see how far Nunes has come and given that her résumé includes first-round finishes of Meisha Tate, Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm, and Cris Cyborg, it's crazy to think that a "smaller" opponent in Shevchenko was one of the few to be able to take her to the limit. It's certainly a justified reason to do the third bout, even though Nunes is 2-0.