UFC women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko is set for her first title defense. She’ll meet Jessica Eye in the co-main event of June 8’s UFC 238 from the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.
The fight is sandwiched between the anticipated Tony Ferguson vs. Donald Cerrone lightweight bout and the Henry Cejudo vs. Marlon Moraes bantamweight title bout. Add in the fact that Shevchenko isn’t exactly known for outside-the-cage trash talk, and the high-profile women’s fight has flown under the radar thus far.
However, there was a recent incident that could definitely add some heat to the lead-up of the fight. Last week, ‘Bullet’ posted some training footage of her hitting the bag at the UFC Performance Institute that garnered quite the response from fans – and Eye herself. Check it out:
Las Vegas. May 2019Eye soon responded that the footage of the training video was sped up to make Shevchenko appear faster:
She sped up her video to make her sled look faster
dude I am dead right
— Jessica Eye (@jessicaevileye) May 16, 2019
I didn’t know it’s a thing and people do that . Hilarious
Not surprisingly, the comments section on both the video and Eye’s tweet went wild. Many claimed ‘Bullet’ was just that fast and Eye was clutching at anything she could to trash her opponent. On the other side of the coin, more onlookers pointed to the speed at which cars rushed by in the background of the video as proof it was indeed sped up.
Shevchenko responded to the tweet with a short diss soon thereafter:
You just have slow vision, cabrona !
— Valentina Shevchenko (@BulletValentina) May 17, 2019
‘Bullet’ then opened up on the claim in much greater detail in an appearance on MMA Junkie Radio this week. In it, she affirmed that Eye’s insistence of doctoring the footage didn’t get to her too much. Instead, she’s much more focused on the actual fight:
“It didn’t bother me like how people are trying to imagine, like it goes deep to your soul, like it bothers you too much,” Shevchenko said. “No, this doesn’t happen with me, because to make that happen it would have to be too much happening. I know how to control my emotions and how cool I have to be before the fight, to concentrate all my emotions on one thing, to explode during the fight.”
But even though Eye’s suggestion won’t affect her much, she also couldn’t let it go unaddressed:
“Of course, I felt that I had to tell her something, because if the person (makes up) stupid things, you have to respond. Even if they don’t make any sense, this is my point of view, and I shared it with everyone.”
At the end of the day, Shevchenko isn’t going to waste energy on worrying about such things, however. She and Eye both train at the UFC Performance Institute, and the champion says she can even say hello to her adversary while focusing on the bout:
“For me, it’s nothing. I even can say hello to her,” Shevchenko said. “For me, it doesn’t cost anything, because in the octagon we have to fight. Right now, I have to prepare for my fight. This is what I think about everything, all day long, to be the best version of me for my fight. I don’t spend too much energy on different things.”
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