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Earlier this year, Alexa Grasso shocked the world by submitting Valentina Shevchenko to claim the flyweight title. Now, the two meet again, with Grasso looking to defend her belt and Shevchenko aiming to reclaim her lost title.
The win in March moved Grasso to 5-0 since transitioning to the 125-pound weight class, and showed how opportunistic and well-prepared the Mexican champion was heading into that fight. She pounced on Shevchenko’s spinning back kick attempt and never gave her a second to try and work free after taking her back, forcing her to defend and eventually drawing out the tap.
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After dropping the opening round of their first encounter, Shevchenko was in complete control during the second and third, and cruising along in the fourth before disaster struck. She’d been on top of the division since December 2018 and very seldom challenged, though it’s worth noting that her two most recent outings produced her most competitive successful title defense and her first loss in the UFC at flyweight.
What’s great about running the matchup back right away is that we’re going to get answers to all those questions we have about how and why the first fight played out the way it did, at least in theory. We’ll also see how Grasso responds to entering as champion and how the last several months with the belt has impacted her, while also learning how Shevchenko responds to her first loss in quite some time.