Valentina Shevchenko’s dominant win over Jessica Andrade adds to her flyweight legacy
Valentina Shevchenko has settled nicely into her throne atop the UFC women’s flyweight division. On Saturday, Shevchenko disposed of Jessica Andrade with relative ease. The fight, which ended at 3:19 of the second round, was the fifth title defense for the 33-year-old Shevchenko.
Heading into the fight, which took place on the pay-per-view portion of UFC 261, UFC president Dana White said of Andrade, “She’s a real problem for Shevchenko that (Shevchenko is) going to have to figure out…” Shevchenko seemed to have Andrade figured out before the referee signaled the start of the fight.
Shevchenko overwhelmed Andrade in every aspect of the fight game. She negated Andrade’s power by keeping her at the end of her strikes. Shevchenko showed that Andrade’s vaunted strength was of no concern by stopping her takedown attempts. Then, as if to cement that point, Shevchenko landed each of her seven takedown attempts. As for her accuracy, the champion connected on 32 of 39 significant striking attempts for a landing percentage of 82 percent. Shevchenko ended the fight on the ground, opening a wound on Andrade’s forehead with strikes from the crucifix.
After the win, Shevchenko seemed to address White’s pre-fight words when she said that maybe fighters need to figure her out and not the other way around.
“Why my opponents can’t figure out what the weakness of mine is?” Shevchenko said. “(Because) there is no weakness.”
After the nearly flawless performance Shevchenko delivered on Saturday, it’s hard to argue with that statement.
With the win, Shevchenko added her name to the UFC women’s flyweight record book in a few categories and improved on some others. Below is a list of the records the defending champ owns in the division and where she stood before UFC 261.
UFC 261 took place Saturday at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. The main card streamed on ESPN+ pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and ESPN+ and early prelims on ESPN+ and UFC Fight Pass.
Below are the final fight stats for Shevchenko vs. Andrade.