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Aside from two close losses to current Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) “champ champ,” Amanda Nunes, Valentina Shevchenko has been on a tear inside the Octagon. But since moving down to Flyweight, “Bullet” has been an absolute monster.
That’s according to UFC commentator, Joe Rogan, who isn’t short on superlatives when describing the dominance advantage Shevchenko has over every other 125-pounder in the mixed martial arts (MMA) game today.
“Valentina at 125 [pounds], she’s a f**king monster,” Rogan said during a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience with guest Angela Hill as transcribed by BJPenn.com. “She’s a monster. She’s so good.”
In her last fight, Shevchenko completely dominated Katelynn Chookagian for three rounds before scoring a vicious stoppage victory at UFC 247 in Houston, Texas (relive it again here). It was one of the few times Rogan felt that despite how hard he tried to sell Shevchenko’s opponent beforehand, he didn’t see a path of victory for her.
“That fight, I did my best to pump up Katlyn Chookagian and make it seem like it was going to be a good fight, but all I could think of is ‘how is this girl beat [Shevchenko]?’ How are you going to beat her? She does everything perfect,” he added before continuing on to praise her skills outside of the age, as well.
“She’s scary,” he said. “She’s a scary person. She went down to the range in Texas, and the guys at the range were like ‘the way that lady shoots, she shoots like a f**king special ops soldier. We haven’t seen somebody come in here and shoot that good unless they’re a SEAL or a competitive shooter.’”
And that’s where the whole “Valentina is Russian spy” joke plays in.
While she isn’t moonlighting as an undercover agent for Mother Russia, she is kicking ass and taking names inside he eight-sided cage, leading many to say there isn’t a worthy adversary at Flyweight capable of taking her throne.
That’s why we suggested UFC book a trilogy fight against Nunes next to give the rest of the 125-pound weight class an opportunity to come up with a true No. 1 contender.