Valentina Shevchenko is considered by many to be the uncrowned queen of the UFC women’s flyweight division. It is widely expected that she will soon challenge for the champion, Nicco Montano’s title. However, Montano is yet to make even a single title defense. Shevchenko has now had some harsh words for the champion and has told her to “step out” of the title picture if she isn’t ready to defend it.
“Bullet” recently made an appearance on MMA Fighting’s, The MMA Hour. Here’s what she had to say:
Not yet, we are not at that point [Montano vacating the title], but I think it would be very right to do things like this because if you are not ready to fight, if you don’t want to fight, you have to leave the belt — you cannot hold it.
If you are feeling that you have health issues and you cannot fight for a long time you just have to leave it. When you come back you have a right to fight for this belt again. It’s not the right thing to just hold [the belt] and say it’s mine forever. Either you are fighting and defending or you should step out.
First Nicco said she was ready for July 7th and the they came back to her with July 28th, but she said no. I don’t know what she’s thinking. Maybe she thinks she has done everything she wanted to in her life and she’s ready to go and retire — I don’t know.
I understand that she will be ready some time at the end of the summer. I will be here waiting to fight for the title. She just can’t run all the time, you have to stop sometimes. I just do my job. I never stop training so I’m always in good shape. I just have to wait my time and see how it turns out.
Yes, I feel a bit like she is [avoiding me], but I also think it could be her strategy. I don’t know if they have approached her for a date at the end of the summer, if not maybe she will accept it, but nobody can be sure if she will be fighting by then.
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