Alexa Grasso welcomes immediate rematch against Valentina Shevchenko following her title win at UFC 285.
It seems that the newly crowned UFC women’s flyweight champion is willing to give Valentina Shevchenko an immediate rematch. Following her submission win over ‘Bullet’ at UFC 285, Alexa Grasso believes the former champ had a dominant enough reign to warrant that right.
In an interview with Ag Fight, Grasso explained how she felt prepared for the fight and unwilling to accept any other result but a win. Even though the 29-year-old admitted to getting into some trouble during the second round, she gave some insight into just how she was able to remain calm and eventually manage to turn the fight around.
“I told you I’d finish the fight,” Grasso stated. “I had pictured it many times in my head. I only wanted to walk out of there as the champion. She changed her strategy in the second round. She took me down and I wasn’t doing great for a while there. But I kept thinking I was going to get out of it. I drilled that position a lot. The immediate rematch makes sense. She was a dominant champion. We can fight again.”
The win over Valentina put Grasso (16-3) on a five-fight winning streak, with wins over Ji Yeon Kim, Maycee Barber, Joanne Wood and Viviane Araujo prior to beating Shevchenko. The 29-year-old’s latest loss took place in September 2019, when she dropped a majority decision to former strawweight champion Carla Esparza.