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Valentina Shevchenko has weighed in on the riff between Dana White and former UFC champ Cris Cyborg.
Following UFC president Dana White’s war of words with former featherweight champion Cris Cyborg, UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko has said that White ‘is a good person’ and takes care of his fighters.
The comment from Shevchenko stems from Dana White saying he was ‘done’ with Cyborg after the Brazilian’s decision win over Felicia Spencer at UFC 240. Cyborg then released a video on social media that depicted White in a bad light, but later apologised to the UFC president and admitted the video was altered.
Talking to MMA Fighting, Shevchenko weighed in on the situation.
“With the situation she had with Dana White recently, I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to what happened between them,” Shevchenko said.
“But I can say that from what I know of Dana White, he’s a very good person; he’s a very polite and kind person. Since very early on, he’s always been worried about the fighters. If he says, ‘I will take care of you’, you can be sure he will take care of you because he’s trying to make life for the fighters in the UFC good. [He wants UFC fighters] to have everything because UFC is the biggest organization of mixed-martial arts in the world. That’s not just him, that’s everyone that’s involved in the UFC; their treatment of fighters is unique—I haven’t received this [treatment] in any other organization.”
Shevchenko concluded by saying she had never considered fighting Cyborg as the two are in different weight classes, but she considers her a ‘friend’ and has trained with her regularly.
“I never was thinking about [fighting Cyborg] because we’re in two totally different weight classes. We’ve commonly trained together, I’ve always considered her more of sparring partner and a friend. It’s never been in my mind to make that fight happen.”
Shevchenko headlines Saturday’s UFC Uruguay card against Liz Carmouche, in what is her second defense of the title she won vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 231 last December.