Valentina Shevchenko vs Taila Santos booked for UFC 275
Perhaps the greatest female combat athlete to ever do it, Valentina ‘Bullet’ Shevchenko has her next match up aligned, as she aims to defend her UFC flyweight championship at UFC 275 opposing No. 5 ranked Taila Santos.
This bout is to go down on June 11, 2022, at a to-be-determined venue, and it is to be the co-main event to Glover Teixeira’s first title defense against former Rizin champion Jiri Prochazka.
Now, many fans don’t know who Taila Santos is, but she’s as deserving as anyone in the division for a title shot.
For starters, the champion has already defeated contenders ranked 1-through-4 (Jessica Andrade, Katlyn Chookagian, Lauren Murphy, and Jennifer Maia).
So, let’s get into what the challenger has done throughout her career.
Santos started out fighting in 2013, having gone 14-0 from November of that year until August of 2016.
That 14th victory showed her claim the AFC bantamweight championship via KO (punch to body), her second KO victory in a row at the point.
She then took exactly two years off, before returning to the sport, and her natural division of 125 lbs, in August of 2018. This performance on Dana White’s Contender Series improved her record to 15-0, and she was given a shot at a UFC contract considering.
Santos lost her promotional debut via split decision, before going on a four-fight win streak, leading up to her granted title shot at UFC 275.
That means she comes into this fight with a record of 19-1, which is just astounding, and as a former champion herself nonetheless.
These four wins showed her victorious over Molly McCann (UD), Gillian Robertson (UD), Roxanne Modafferi (UD), and most recently Joanne Calderwood (rear naked choke) last November.
Valentina Shevchenko comes into the bout with a record of 22-3, having gone 57-2 as a professional kickboxer, as well as 2-0 as a professional boxer.
She’s a seven-time UFC world champion, having won the belt in December of 2018, and having defended it six times since.
Not to mention, her first defeat came to Liz Carmouche via doctor stoppage, a loss she avenged in one of her title defenses, and her other two defeats came to Amanda Nunes, the other argued women’s goat.
Those two fights were incredibly close as well.
‘The Bullet’ was dominating the latter part of their first fight, and many believe she won the rematch, which was a title fight she lost via split decision. Nunes is the much bigger party of the two as well, being a former multi-time champion at 135 lbs, as well as the current champion at 145 lbs.
Nonetheless, Shevchenko has her own belt now in the flyweight division, and aims to make the seventh-straight defense of it against a very talented up-and-coming challenger come June 11.
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