Noche UFC goes down at The Sphere in Las Vegas on September 14th and tonight, Dana White announced the entire card. In the main event, Sean O’Malley defends his bantamweight title against Merab Dvalishvili. The co-main event will feature a trilogy fight for the women’s flyweight title and it’s a fight that’s already happened on Mexican Independence Day.
Alexa Grasso (16-3-1) will defend her flyweight title against the former champion Valentina Shevchenko (23-4-1). This will be their third and final fight to once and for all settle who is the better flyweight. The two first fought back in March of last year and it was a fight that Shevchenko was controlling.
It looked like Shevchenko was well on her way to her eighth UFC title defense, but then everything changed in an instant. Shevchenko threw a sloppy kick which allowed Grasso to jump on her back. Grasso immediately sunk in a rear naked choke and got the tap to become the champion.
Noche UFC Part 2
Because of Shevchenko’s dominant run, the UFC gave her an immediate rematch at the first Noche UFC event last September. That fight was razor close through the first four rounds. I had Shevchenko up 3-1 as did two of the judges with one judge having the fight even.
After Shevchenko controlled the first half of the round, Grasso secured a takedown and got the back of Shevchenko. She did enough to win the final round and I scored the fight 48-47 as did one of the judges for Shevchenko. The judge who had the fight even scored it 48-47 Grasso. No problem at all with that scorecard.
However, judge Michael Bell who had Shevchenko up 3-1 entering the final round, somehow scored the fifth round a 10-8 for Grasso which led to a draw. It was one of the worst scores of all time and in a way, it robbed Shevchenko of regaining her UFC title. Shevchenko thought the fact that the fight happened on Mexican Independence Day skewed the judging and based on that score, it’s hard not to think that way.
Shevchenko had been hesitant about fighting Grasso again on this card because of how the judging went in the last fight. However, at the end of the day, she wasn’t going to turn down this opportunity. On September 14th, both will look to prove once and for all that they are the best flyweight in the world.