Bullet to champ: Defend the belt or step out
Valentina Shevchenko: “It would be very right to [vacate the title] 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.”
#1 flyweight contender Valentina ‘Bullet’ Shevchenko signed a bout agreement to fight for the title vs. division champion Nicco Montano at UFC on Fox 30 on July 28, 2018, in Calgary, Alberta.
However, Montano indicated on her social network that she is suffering from a series of medical issues, and has had her tonsils removed.
Shevchenko appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and has a message for Montano.
“I think it would be very right to [vacate the title] 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,” said Shevchenko, as transcribed by Peter Carroll for MMA Fighting. 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 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 sometime 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.
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. Maybe at the very last second she could say that she still has some kind of injury and she cannot fight. Maybe it will happen, so I will continue to do my job and keep training.”
I think another part of her plan is her thinking that I will lose my patience and ask for another fight. Then I will fight another fight and she will be expecting that something will happen in this fight. I’m waiting for my title fight. It will happen.