Zhang Weili came up short in her bid to become a two-division UFC champion after falling in lopsided fashion to Valentina Shevchenko back in November.
Despite close odds and the anticipation of an all-time
classic between two of the best pound-for-pound fighters on the planet, Shevchenko was just too big and too strong for the undersized Zhang, who just never managed to really get her offense going. Zhang lost a unanimous decision and her head coach John Wood admits there are a lot of factors that determined how that fight played out but the size difference between the fighters can’t be ignored.
“Valentina is clearly the best female fighter in the world currently,” Wood told MMA Fighting. “She proved it that night. She is so good at doing what she does. She is the best in the world, there is nobody better, at doing what she does. That fight, basically, Valentina will fight you, she’ll eke out [rounds], she’ll point fight you, she’ll wrestle you down, she’ll hold you down. She’ll eke out a fight. She is so patient. Her timing is so good. She is OK doing whatever she needs to do to win a fight. When you fight somebody like that and you don’t have that kind of patience and sometimes if feels like things aren’t going the way you want them to go when you’re fighting somebody like that. You’ve seen over the years, Valentina will lull somebody to sleep or she’ll just eke it out and you’re like I don’t know what’s going on and she’ll just beat you a little bit everywhere or she’ll just take you down and hold you down or she’ll kick you in the head. I did not see it going that one-sided.
“There’s weight classes for a reason and when you take two equally skilled fighters, the bigger, stronger one is sometimes going to have the advantage. I know what Weili’s capable of and everybody does. She’s the best strawweight we’ve ever seen. She’s amazing. That woman is an athlete and I’ve seen what she does in the gym. To have Valentina do that and be able to hold her down and do those things was impressive. There’s weight classes for a reason and sometimes you’ve got to find that out.”
Naturally, Zhang’s loss immediately led to a conversation about her future and a potential return to the strawweight division where she was the reigning champion until giving up her belt to take a stab at the flyweight title.
In her absence, Mackenzie Dern captured the vacant title but she’s expected to be a sizable underdog against Zhang if she returns to 115 pounds.
“There’s obviously a clear cut path to go back and take that title from Mackenzie — no disrespect to Mackenzie,” Wood said about the potential fight. “That’s Weili’s belt.
“A lot of people looking at that and obviously that’s the fight to make. We’ll see what she wants to do.”
Ideally, Wood would prefer if Zhang didn’t have to endure such a tough weight cut to get back down to 115 pounds but he also understands that’s the nature of the beast when it comes to competing in MMA.
Fighters so rarely compete at their natural size and instead shed immense amounts of weight to compete with other athletes doing the same exact thing.
That’s why Wood would love to see Zhang at her absolute best without suffering through a brutal weight cut but he knows that’s unlikely to happen any time soon if ever.
“Let me go on record what nobody’s ever said before but weight cutting is the stupidest shit in the world. It really is,” Wood said sarcastically. “It blows my mind every time we do this. It sucks that we have to do it but it is part of the sport. It is part of what we do. Every time I do it, watching these poor guys suffer for really no reason other than the fact someone wants to cheat the system — not cheat it but if the playing field was level, I think you’d have just have a lot happier fighters, you’d have a lot crazier, better fights but it’s just so nuts what these guys do to make weight. I feel bad for everybody every time they cut weight.
“Weili’s a perfect example. She’s a little muscle hamster. She is just in that spot where she’s probably too big to be a strawweight. As you get older, that shit sucks. It’s harder to cut weight and she’s probably a little too small to be at the top [at flyweight].”
While that probably means Zhang’s future is back at strawweight, Wood won’t discount the possibility that she makes a few tweaks and changes and eventually tests herself at 125 pounds again.
“I think Weili can go and make adjustments and fight a completely different fight,” Wood said. “She’s that kind of athlete and that kind of competitor. It’s just doing what you think is best for your career, what you want to do.”
