The UFC has finalized the next title fight in the women’s flyweight division. The flyweight champion, Valentina Shevchenko (20-3) will be defending her title against the former UFC strawweight champion, Jessica Andrade (21-8).
The matchup will take place at UFC 261 on April 24th. ESPN’s Brett Okamoto was the first to report the news. Shevchenko will be looking to defend her flyweight title for the fifth time on April 24th.
There is no doubting that Shevchenko is one of the best fighters in all of the UFC. Since making her debut with the promotion, the only fighter to get the better of Shevchenko was Amanda Nunes, who of course is considered to be the best of all time.
Worth noting that both of the losses against Nunes took place at 135 pounds. Shevchenko is much more natural and at her best at 125 pounds. Since the UFC created the flyweight division, Shevchenko has been in complete control.
Her dominance has gotten to the point where fans are amazed when she loses a round. Not a fight, but merely a round. Take her last fight at UFC 255 as the perfect example. In that fight, Shevchenko took on the tough, Jennifer Maia.
Maia was able to use her strength and grappling to clearly win the second round. That round made everyone stand back, but Shevchenko would go on to win four of the five rounds. She is truly something special and she has an exciting fight on her hands in a couple of months.
Third UFC weight class for Andrade
The UFC career of Jessica Andrade has been an interesting one. When she made her debut with the promotion back in 2013, there was only the bantamweight division. With that, Andrade was forced to fight at 135 pounds if she wanted to fight for the UFC.
Because she’s so talented, she was able to hold her own despite being much smaller. Then, the promotion created the strawweight division at 115 pounds. Andrade carries a lot of muscle, but she was able to cut down to that weight where she would be on a more even playing field.
The highlight of her strawweight career came at UFC 237 when she became the strawweight champion. However, she would go on to lose the title in her first defense. After losing a rematch to Rose Namajunas back on Fight Island, Andrade decided to try out her third weight class.
125 pounds is much more natural for Andrade. She doesn’t have to deplete herself due to an extreme weight cut and she maintains her speed that she had at strawweight. That makes her very dangerous to other flyweights.
She made her flyweight debut against top contender, Katlyn Chookagian. With a combination of body shots, Andrade was able to get the first round stoppage to earn a shot at the UFC’s flyweight queen. This is going to be one helluva fight and I’m excited to watch.