The beauty of mixed martial arts | UFC 275 | Valentina Shevchenko vs Taila Santos
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Kyrgyzstan-born Shevchenko has handled everyone the UFC has thrown her way at 125 pounds, and her only losses come at the hands of the even more dominant Amanda Nunes, at a higher weight class.
And it poses the question - what’s next for Valentina?
Of course, it should just be a matter of who is going to give Shevchenko the greatest challenge, test her, push her to her limits. After all, that’s her MO - she wants to be untouchable and to find her limit as a human. She doesn’t set herself goals based on record or stats, she just wants to find the point at which she peaks. And she can push herself in training - and she does - but the real test comes with the threat of an opponent, looking to take everything you’ve worked for.
But the UFC is a business, and the fans are looking for entertainment. They want drama. They want storylines and rivalries. They want trash talk and reality TV. They don’t care for the traditional codes of martial arts - respect, discipline, blah blah boring. The people’s vibe, not mine. My favourite fighter is Stipe, for fuck’s sake, he’s a goddamn saint.
Let’s dive into the question together and, maybe, along the way, we’ll discover the beauty of mixed martial arts.
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Shevchenko - is there demand for the beauty of martial arts in the UFC?
That’s it. UFC 275 is just a distant memory now. Just moments ago, it was everything I had to live for. [clips from jiri and Joanna videos]
And now, it’s no more.
And, of course, We saw glover teixeira walking in like a proper rockstar and walking out probably with a lot of regret on his shoulders.
That first round was beautiful work from Teixeira, he executed his game plan beautifully, but Jiri got some big ground and pound done in the last 15 seconds
Jiri was precise in round 2 and you cannot say nothing about glovers chin. Glover got him to the ground again and landed some big shots. He made it to full mount but only had 13 seconds to work.
But, of course, every time Jiri was on the feet, he was dangerous, even as he got tired. He had a huge round three but it ended with gruesome elbows from Glover.
What a fucking fight.
Glover got an early takedown in 4. Full mount. Raining down punches. Threatened a couple of arm triangles, jiri slipped his way out and ended up on top. Glover slipped through, took the back. Jiri on top.
Glover landed big shots in the opening minute of round 5 had him almost out on his feet then made a mistake by going for the guillotine. Glover kept finding the mark. Jiris movement was nothing on what it is when he’s fresh. Glover got the full mount again with two minutes to go.
AND THEN
With less than 30 seconds left
When he was seconds from defending his belt
Glover made a mistake and Jiri was around his neck and the champ was tapping.
And. New.
And we saw Valentino Shevchenko’s precision from the very first shot thrown.
When Taila finally went IN, Valentina just grabbed her and dominated the clinch, landing knees and shoulder strikes but then she slipped and it all changed. The champ made a mistake. I’m not sure we’ve seen it before.
Santos got the back, the body triangle, the control.
Okay. It didn’t go anywhere. But it was exciting for a minute. We were all thinking What if??
And in the second round, we saw the strength and smothering of Santos. We saw a takedown. We saw a close omo platta from Shevchenko. Then a takedown, headlock, ARMBAR attempt - in the pitch and tone of DC.
Valentina picked up the striking volume in round 3 / santos popped right out of shevchenkos takedown, got her own, got the back again, went for another choke and it was closer this time - on the chin though, not under the neck. WHAT. IF.
A clash of heads gave Santos nasty swelling and Shevchenko an opportunity to claw this one back.
Round five was a big old scrambled egg to begin, but it found its way back to the feet AND IT WAS TENSE. It was just so close. It felt like every single move mattered, every action moved the needle.
The champ controlled santos on the ground for most of the latter half of the round, and santos looked a little tired, there wasn’t as much drive to succeed as we saw in the earlier rounds but - after that early dodgy judging decision - i did not know what was going to happen and rightly so because it was a split decision win for Shevchenko.
And still - but after the toughest challenge of her career.
