Valentina
Shevchenko doesn’t want the weight of Mexican Independence Day
bearing down on her trilogy clash with Alexa
Grasso.
Shevchenko and Grasso will serve as rival coaches on “The Ultimate
Fighter 32,” which features a middleweight and featherweight cast.
The two are expected to clash for the third time sometime after the
series concludes, potentially at UFC
306 on Sept. 14, when Dana White has vowed to put on a
one-of-kind spectacle at The Sphere in Las Vegas in celebration of
Mexican Independence Day. Having already fought Grasso once on a
Noche UFC card last year, Shevchenko wants to have something
celebrating her home country of Kyrgyzstan in the trilogy
fight.
“I think more fair it’s gonna be one for her, one for me,”
Shevchenko said during a promotional press conference for “TUF 32.”
“We fought on Mexican Independence Day before. Now we have to find
out something with Kyrgyzstan. Even now, I was briefly looking for
the [TUF] fighters. We have a Mexican fighter, but we don’t have a
Kyrgyzstani fighter. So, it has to be one for her, one for me so
this is a fair game.”
Grasso brought Shevchenko’s flyweight title reign to an end with a
submission victory at UFC
285 last March in one of the greatest upsets of all time. The
two met in a rematch at
Noche UFC in September, where Grasso retained her belt with a
controversial split draw.