Valentina Shevchenko dominates Jessica Andrade to retain UFC women’s flyweight title

Valentina Shevchenko has long been billed as one of the best strikers in all of MMA, male or female. On Saturday, she decided to give everyone a reminder that she’s nowhere near a one-dimensional standup fighter.

Shevchenko dominated Jessica Andrade with her wrestling and then finished in violent fashion with elbows on the ground. The result was a TKO victory for Shevchenko at 3 minutes, 19 seconds of the second round at UFC 261 in Jacksonville, Florida.

With the victory, Shevchenko defended her UFC women’s flyweight title for the fifth time. She has been champion since Dec. 8, 2018.

“I like to surprise people,” Shevchenko said in her postfight interview. “They don’t expect this from me, but here I am. I can do everything.”

In her previous bout, Shevchenko struggled a bit with wrestling and physicality against Jennifer Maia at UFC 255 last November. Shevchenko ultimately won by unanimous decision against Maia, but it was a small weakness she undoubtedly wanted to correct before fighting the similarly strong Andrade. And things were never close Saturday night. Shevchenko was 6-for-6 on takedown attempts.

“Opponents trying to figure out a weakness of mine?” Shevchenko said. “Don’t waste your time. There is none.”

Shevchenko took Andrade down over and over in the first round, ragdolling her shorter foe around the Octagon. The second round was more of the same, until Shevchenko was able to slip into the mounted crucifix position and land elbow after elbow to Andrade’s head until referee Dan Miragliotta stepped in to stop it.

“My plan was to come into the Octagon and destroy my opponent,” Shevchenko said.

ESPN had Shevchenko ranked No. 2 and Andrade ranked No. 6 on its women’s MMA pound-for-pound list coming in. At women’s flyweight, ESPN has Shevchenko and Andrade ranked Nos. 1 and 2, respectively.

The bout took place at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, the first UFC event since the COVID-19 pandemic with a capacity crowd.

Shevchenko (21-3) has won seven straight and is one of the most dominant champions in the UFC, regardless of gender. The Kyrgyzstan native, who lives and trains out of Las Vegas, has the most wins in UFC women’s flyweight history (7). Shevchenko, 33, sports a 10-2 UFC record and has only lost to one woman: Amanda Nunes (twice), the UFC women’s bantamweight and featherweight champion. Only three fighters have more title fight wins in UFC history than Shevchenko: Jon Jones, Nunes and Jose Aldo. Shevchenko has six, tied with Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Stipe Miocic.

Andrade (21-9) was coming off a first-round TKO over Katlyn Chookagian last October. The Brazil native held the women’s strawweight title in 2019 after knocking out Rose Namajunas with a slam at UFC 237. Andrade, 29, has the most fights in UFC women’s history (19), across three weight classes: bantamweight, strawweight and flyweight.