Some six months after an impressive debut in the flyweight division
where she defeated former No. 1 contender Katlyn
Chookagian by TKO in the first round, ex-strawweight queen
Jessica
Andrade has earned a title shot against Valentina
Shevchenko.
Andrade will enter UFC 261
on Saturday as the underdog against the reigning 125-pound
champion. The Brazilian has a clear game plan in mind to dethrone
Shevchenko.
“Jennifer
Maia showed that If you can get a good throw, stabilize and
attack with ground-and pound, that is a good way to put her in
trouble. I’ll expose Valentina´s weak points,” Andrade told
Sherdog.com. “I know exactly how strong I am when I grab my
opponents on the cage and raise them from the floor.
There is no way out. The interesting point in that fight is that my
strong points are her weak points, and the smaller Octagon of [the
UFC Apex] will be better for me in that fight.”
Andrade recognizes however that the champion has advantages in the
stand-up game.
“Definitely she is the best female striker in the sport,” Andrade
said. “The way she moves, the spinning kicks, the counters.
She is really frightening. But that will be another interesting
point of our fight. She never faced an opponent that gets hit
and keeps moving forward like myself. I can not anticipate how it
will end because we never trained together, but all I can say is
that we will win a ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus.”
As someone with experience facing both Rose
Namajunas (twice) and Weili
Zhang, Andrade shared her opinion on why she believes “Thug
Rose” should be the favorite in the strawweight title fight
scheduled for the UFC 261 co-main event.
“Weili is very strong and resistant, but Rose is a
more complete fighter and also hits hard,” Andrade said.
“Furthermore, she has the reach and speed advantage, which will
play an important role in that fight. It’s gonna be a tough
one, but my bet is that Namajunas will get the belt.”
In an ideal scenario, Andrade would beat Shevchenko to capture
flyweight gold and then challenger the Zhang-Namajunas winner in a
bid to become two-division champion.
“The perfect night would be beat Valentina who is, in my opinion,
one of the best female fighters of all-time and capture the
flyweight belt,” Andrade said. “After that, step back in the
Octagon a few minutes later to challenge the strawweight champion
for a rematch.
“If Rose wins, it would be great to have a chance to have a rubber
match with her. If Weili wins that would be great too, because I
would love to face her again without illegal elbows on my neck. The
possibility of being the first woman to get flyweight
and strawweight UFC belts in two fights after 10 years of
hard work and dedication to that sport would be, no doubt, my
biggest dream achievement.”