Shevchenko unbothered by underdog status vs. Fiorot at UFC 315

MONTREAL — During her first UFC flyweight championship reign, spanning eight fights from late 2018 through early 2023, Valentina Shevchenko was never once a betting underdog. She was so automatic that she’d often close as a four-figure favourite, meaning you’d need to gamble at least $1,000 — often much more — to win $100.

Such was her supremacy over the division. The UFC struggled to find someone who could push Shevchenko into championship rounds, let alone force a decision. But this weekend, as she attempts to begin a second flyweight reign after passing the title back-and-forth with Alexa Grasso over the last two years, Shevchenko is tracking to defend the belt for the first time in her career as an underdog, ranging from +105 to +120 depending on where you look.

That says one thing about her opponent in UFC 315 presented by Skilled Trades College‘s co-main event: Multi-talented striker Manon Fiorot. And another about the MMA industry’s confidence in Shevchenko maintaining her dominance as she prepares to enter the octagon an 18th time in her 37th year on the planet.

What does Shevchenko think it says? Beats her.

“I don’t have any idea why they did that,” the 37-year-old said with a laugh. “Sometimes (oddsmakers) make some unexpected moves and we barely can understand what the logic is under all of that.”

The reasoning is likely more of a hedge against inevitability than anything. Despite evidence to the contrary, Shevchenko is made of flesh and bone and blood. She must falter at some point. And Fiorot — a long, athletic, aggressive southpaw — presents a considerable challenge. If anyone’s going to take advantage of a diminished, less punishing Shevchenko this late in her career, it’s likely to be an explosive, powerful threat like Fiorot.

The French challenger may be 35 herself, but she’s accrued comparatively little milage over a brief professional career that began in her late 20s. She ought to be the fresher, stronger, larger fighter come Saturday night. The odds merely reflect the unavoidable reality of erosion over time at the highest levels of professional sport.

“But if you would really focus on these numbers all the time, you would go crazy,” Shevchenko said. “You have to really focus on your power — inner power and strength. This is all that matters in the fight. I know if I compare myself to a few years ago, I’m a better version of myself. Faster, stronger, more confident. I feel I’m in the best shape I’ve been in my entire career.”

That would be quite a feat for an already-legendary athlete who made her professional MMA debut in 2003, was a taekwondo European champion in 2005, won her first of eight gold medals at the Muay Thai world championships in 2006, then went 57-3 as a kickboxer before entering the UFC in 2015.

Shevchenko had already summited multiple mountains before she won UFC’s women’s flyweight championship in 2018. She turned up approximately once every six months thereafter to dispatch a new challenger with relative ease before cutting a promo in one of her four languages and pirouetting out of the octagon. She defended her title twice each in 2019, 2020 and 2021, dropping only a single round in the process.

But in 2023, while attempting an eighth consecutive defence against a younger and noticeably quicker Grasso, Shevchenko whiffed on a fourth-round spinning attack and allowed her opponent a seamless back-take. Only a half-minute later, Grasso had Shevchenko flattened out and tapping to a neck crank, ending a half-decade of dominance in a flash.

Shevchenko, who was ahead on the cards at the stoppage, was the definition of an instant rematch candidate before even considering it was both her first flyweight loss and first time being submitted. That initiated an 18-month odyssey that saw the pair fight to a split draw in a highly-entertaining, controversially-scored second fight, host a season of The Ultimate Fighter, and meet a third time at UFC 306, where Shevchenko left no room for debate as she earned over 16 minutes of control time through a five-round steamrolling.

All the while, Fiorot was left to bide her time. The one-time French snowboarding champion has arguably deserved this title shot since she decisioned Katlyn Cerminara at UFC 280 in October, 2022. But with Shevchenko and Grasso’s trilogy bringing the division to a standstill, she was forced to keep busy racking up a couple more victories, first in a competitive fight welcoming Rose Namajunas to flyweight, then in a lopsided one against Erin Blanchfield that ran Fiorot’s win streak to a dozen.

She even weighed in as a backup for Shevchenko and Grasso’s third fight last September. Undergoing that championship weight cut is like another fight in and of itself for Fiorot, an imposing, physical flyweight. She’s listed two inches taller than both Shevchenko and Grasso, and a defining factor of her most recent win was how easily Fiorot was able to throw Blanchfield, a high-level grappler who’s trained jiu-jitsu since childhood, off of her in the clinch.

Of course, that’s Fiorot’s game. Leveraging her size and length to keep fights at her distance while letting opponents walk into jabs and counters as they attempt to close it. She demonstrated some power earlier in her career with knockouts of Victoria Leonardo and Tabatha Ricci in her first two UFC fights, but it hasn’t carried as she’s climbed the flyweight ladder and faced tougher competition. Yet her striking volume’s never been in question as she’s outlanded opponents in 19 of 21 rounds since she entered the UFC.

How will that activity and physicality play against Shevchenko’s technical striking and clinch work? That’s why they say styles make fights. Fiorot’s big, but Shevchenko’s strong. Shevchenko’s experienced, but Fiorot’s fresher. Shevchenko’s demonstrated her proficiency on the mat; Fiorot’s landed only two takedowns in her last three fights.

For her part, Fiorot’s reframed many of those potential disadvantages. She says her ground game’s strong, she simply hasn’t needed it in recent fights. She says the Namajunas and Blanchfield fights greatly increased her octagon experience. She says she feels as prepared as ever, and as comfortable as ever withstanding the pressure and attention of a title fight against a long-time champion.

“I think I had the best training camp of my life. I took on very strong girls in sparring, I took on the best wrestlers, the best grapplers, the best strikers in the world. I did a lot of rounds every day, every week,” Fiorot said in French. “I’m sure of myself. I’m certain of winning this fight.”

Of course, Fiorot isn’t the first Shevchenko opponent to enter fight week self-assured and prepared only to encounter a buzzsaw shortly after the cage door closed behind them. For very good reason, work has already begun carving Shevchenko’s face into the Mount Rushmore of women’s combat sports.

And yet, Shevchenko’s biggest fights may remain ahead of her. Defending her 125-pound belt against Fiorot is a piece of long-overdue, necessary divisional business. But from there, it ought to be superfight after superfight, as Shevchenko winds down an already-legendary career with a series of bangs.

The fight that feels inevitable is Shevchenko vs. strawweight champion Zhang Weili, who has expressed her desire to attempt to become the second women’s double champion in UFC history. But if that fight doesn’t work out, Shevchenko could always move up herself for a clash with Kayla Harrison, or a trilogy fight with Amanda Nunes, who’s been hinting at coming out of retirement.

Shevchenko may be one of the most athletic, well-conditioned women’s fighters in the sport’s history, but that only delays the biologically unavoidable. She’s 37 and either near the end of her prime or past it, depending on your perspective. She only has so much time remaining. That’s certainly what the oddsmakers are suggesting with their lines entering Saturday’s title defence. Not that Shevchenko’s hearing any of it.

“My experience in martial arts, it’s so many years. I started when I was five. Before joining the UFC, I already was 17 times a world champion in Muay Thai, MMA, kickboxing,” she said. “So, imagine how many different characters I was able to meet and how many words they’ve said. If everything would bother me, I never would achieve what I achieved. I think it’s the biggest ability — to block all the energy that’s happening around you and focus on your main goal.”

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