Jessica Andrade has some bad intentions when she enters the Octagon this coming Saturday against the reigning women’s flyweight champion, Valentina Shevchenko. Could Andrade be the one to dethrone Shevchenko? Or will Shevchenko continue her dominance in the division with another victory? Check out our preview of this fight below.
Shevchenko has been a champ for a while. Since winning the women’s flyweight title in 2018 by defeating Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Shevchenko has defended the belt four times. The last one was in November 2020, when he scored a unanimous decision win over Jennifer Maia. Shevchenko is a Muay Thai practitioner, who’ll surely use her reach advantages against Andrade. Shevchenko will come into the fight with a five-inch reach advantage and a three-inch leg reach advantage. He’s also taller by four inches than Andrade. Shevchenko can use all those to stave off Andrade’s attacks while dealing clean blows of her own whenever she wants to initiate the action and when countering. She has six knockout wins and has been knocked out just once so far in her career. Shevchenko is also not afraid to mix it up on the ground. After all, she has seven submission wins against zero submission losses.
Andrade knows that Shevchenko’s striking, particularly her kicks, is the champion’s greatest strength, but she’s not going to back down. During an interview with Globo Esporte, Andrade praised Shevchenko’s striking, but said that her aggressiveness will cause more trouble for the champion. Andrade also mentioned that she’s willing to take shots since she doesn’t “feel them.” Andrade is always pushing forward, looking to put the pressure on her opponents, but this time, she will have to be extra careful because of Shevchenko’s length and stand-up skills. However, Andrade has always fought that way. She’s willing to take two shots just to get a clean one in. In fact, she is absorbing 5.28 significant strikes per minute while landing 6.55. Andrade could look to take Shevchenko down often in this fight, where she can negate Shevchenko’s length while scoring points with her ground-and-pound game. Andraede is averaging 3.21 takedowns per 15 minutes and has a 7-2 submission record.
