Valentina Shevchenko passed one of her biggest tests with flying colors on Saturday night, beating fellow multi-time champion Zhang Weili in a five-round clean sweep.
Shevchenko earned a clear unanimous decision win after sharing the cage with Zhang for 25 minutes, out-muscling the Chinese star in the co-main event of UFC 322 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York.
The fight saw Shevchenko put her flyweight belt on the line against Zhang, who had vacated her title at 115 pounds earlier this year to pursue gold in a new division.
Effective striking at range paired with dominant wrestling allowed Shevchenko to cruise through the fight against a woman who many have considered one of the greatest 115-pound fighters of all time.
Zhang struggled to close the distance against Shevchenko, getting punished for her entries with clean kicks and punches. Shevchenko was especially effective with kicks and knees to the body, visibly hurting Zhang with the shots at points throughout the fight.
Shevchenko’s clear size advantage against Zhang, who was moving up 10 pounds from her usual weight class, played a significant factor in the fight. Shevchenko out-muscled Zhang in each round to land a takedown from a clinch position, earning her a total of 13 minutes of control time, per official UFC stats.
A clash between Zhang and Shevchenko was easily one of the biggest fights that could be made in MMA recently. Both have spent years as dominant forces in their respective weight classes, causing the bout’s odds to be a coin flip by Saturday evening.
“I was prepared for this fight as the hardest challenge of my life,” Shevchenko said during her post-fight interview.
Shevchenko went on a multi-year run with the flyweight title from 2018 to 2023, clearing out the weight class with seven consecutive victories. After dropping the belt two years back to Alexa Grasso, a stunning upset result, the “Bullet” later regained the title in their trilogy fight, kicking off her second reign. She has now pieced together three consecutive championship wins, including a one-sided performance over Manon Fiorot earlier this year.
Zhang similarly put together two separate runs with the strawweight division’s belt since 2019, beating prolific names like Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Carla Esparza, and Jessica Andrade along the way. Overall, she has defended UFC gold a total of four times in her career.
After more than a dozen consecutive title appearances, Shevchenko still isn’t planning on slowing down. She mentioned in her post-fight interview that she is eyeing a matchup against second-ranked contender Natalia Silva, or even another super-fight up at bantamweight against Kayla Harrison next.
