Speaking with Ariel Helwani on ESPN MMA’s Instagram, UFC Women’s Flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko detailed her recovery following pulling out of her upcoming title defence at UFC 251 due to leg injury.
Shevchenko explained the injury had come about after her previous title defence against Katlyn Chookagian at UFC 247 in February.
After the injury began to bother her Shevchenko consulted a doctor who explained that it would take much longer to heal on its own and recommended she undergo surgery to speed up the recovery process.
A week and a half after undergoing the successful surgery in phoenix, Valentina detailed her recovery process.
“It was successful, everything’s good, now I’m doing my physical therapy and recuperating my leg back. So it’s going to be fine I’m expecting as the doctors told me and I will do everything I should do to make my recovery faster, and I am expecting to be back sometime in August”.
Due to the current climate around the world, Valentina believed this was the ideal time to have the surgery and recover before it became a bigger issue.
“You know it was like the second option because everything is on pause right now, no one is doing nothing and I thought that it’s going to be a good time to have the surgery and heal up the whole way. But at the same time, that injury that I had it could provoke a bigger injury if I left it like this. So I don’t want to have something that major because then, of course, it definitely means a year or two years out of competition and I don’t want the time”.
Shevchenko is targeting an August return, insisting she retains the same matchup booked previously for UFC 251 defending her title against #3 ranked contender Joanne Calderwood.