Last night was filled with excitement in Chicago during the main event between the great Muay Thai artist, Valentina "Bully" Shevchenko (13-2) against former women's bantamweight, Holly "The Preachers Daughter" Holm (10-2).
As Valentina is ranked #7 in her division, the mashup between these 3 fighters is fantastic.
There were a lot of predictions for this fight (including myself) that Holm was really going to go in there a give it her all. I mean maybe we did, but the fighter I saw fighting against Shevchenko last night wasn't the BEST Holm in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, Valentina is no joke of a fighter. She comes from a very intensive Muay Thai background where during her career she has defeated our current women's strawweight champion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk FIVE times. That should say something right there of the toughness because Joanna is known to be one of the best strikers in all cross divisions.
Shevchenko seems to have improved a lot during her last fight between current women's bantamweight Champion, Amanda "The Lioness" Nuñes. From that fight, she has proved that she can go the distance. Valentina came out with no fear and was very confident and she had way more strikes than Holm did in many ways. She caught Holly in some situations it seems like she wasn't getting out of in time.
Which you would think Holm might dominate because of her extensive boxing career. Then Valentina would counter with elbow after elbow AFTER ELBOW and that is when Holm started to bleed more after being head-butted.
This fight was so smart and after both the women's losses during their last bout, they were out to prove they can come back from anything no matter what.
With this win secured under the belt of Shevchenko and defeating someone like Holly Holm and what she has done for the division, this is what made me fall in love with MMA, to begin with.
Maybe her rematching against Nuñes can be in her near feature? I think yes. We have once again seen what this fighter can do and I know we haven't seen the end of her yet.