Valentina Shevchenko says she would gladly face Weili Zhang, without “difficulties”

UFC women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko says that she would “gladly” face Weili Zhang and doesn’t “see any difficulties” in this fight.

Weili Zhang successfully defended her UFC women’s strawweight title against Joanna Jedrzejczyk in the co-main event of UFC 248. This was the Chinese champions 1st-title defence since winning the belt from Jessica Andrade via 1st-round knockout at UFC Shenzhen.

Many spectators disagreed with the official judges decision to award Zhang the victory, including Conor McGregor and Valentina Shevchenko. The women’s flyweight champion also believes that she could beat Zhang without “any difficulties”. Shevchenko made a recent appearance on Ariel Helawni’s MMA show. See what she had to say about the fight and Weili Zhang below:

“She did good. She’s strong,” Shevchenko said. “But you could see, once she starts [to] get the real competition, the real level of martial artist, the top level of fighters, the top level of opponent, now she has a struggle. You could see how difficult was this fight with Joanna, her fight, how difficult it was. And I really don’t see Weili defending her belt in the next title fight.”

Shevchenko also explained why she believes that her former opponent, Jedrzejczyk, deserved to get the win on the judges scorecards:

“In my opinion, Joanna won this fight because her accuracy was more on point,” Valentina Shevchenko explained. “And yes, she gets this inflammation on her head, but it was just one punch.”

A strong case for a rematch with Jedrzejczyk and Zhang can be made, but Shevchenko thinks that Rose Namajunas should get the next shot at the title. She also thinks that Namajunas would beat the Chinese champion. In case Zhang wins and can keep her UFC women’s strawweight title for some time, Shevchenko says she would be interested in the fight and sees “no difficulty” in beating the Chinese champion:

“I’ll gladly fight her and I don’t see any difficulties in this fight,” she concluded.

In the meantime, Valentina Shevchenko is scheduled to defend her UFC women’s flyweight title against the Scottish contender in Joanne Calderwood at UFC 251 later this year in June.

This article first appeared on CLOSEDGUARDMEDIA.com on 10th March, 2020.