Gilliard Parana believes his star, former strawweight champ Jessica Andrade, will meet Valentina Shevchenko in 2021.
It may not be long before we see former UFC strawweight champion Jessica Andrade fighting for a second title in her career.
After losing her last two fights at the 115-pound division, ‘Bate-Estaca’ decided to start a new chapter at flyweight in her last outing. In a successful debut, Andrade made quick work of top contender Katlyn Chookagian, which put her as the number-one athlete in the weight class’s rankings.
Now, in an interview with Ag Fight, Jessica’s coach, Gilliard Parana, claims that the talks to put Andrade in a title fight against Valentina Shevchenko are going well. In fact, the trainer says offers were already made since December, but the team was not ready to take on ‘Bullet’ then and are now waiting for a better date to book the match.
“The fight was offered to us in December, but the notice was too short, Parana said. “Jessica had just fought, she had some family and spiritual problems to resolve. They got in touch with us about this Valentina fight in December and then once again after that. We’ve talked about it two or three times. We’re just waiting for a date that’s good for us and the promotion.”
“We’re studying to see if there will be a chance to make this fight happen soon. Jessica’s next fight should be against Valentina, I’m almost 100% sure. If that doesn’t happen, though, we’ll fight anyone, like always. We asked the UFC to fight in March or April. So somewhere around March, April or May, we will see Jessica fight again, for sure.”
After losing her title to Weili Zhang in August 2019, Jessica Andrade (21-8) dropped a split decision to Rose Namajunas in her next outing, in July 2020. The 29-year-old would snap the two-fight losing skid in October of the same year, when she knocked out Katlyn Chookagian in the first round at UFC Fight Island 6.