Every week I do a mailbag column, but some weeks, I go off on such a tangent answering one question that I don’t really have the space to answer any other ones. This is one of those weeks.
Valentina Shevchenko can save all of women’s MMA with one weird trick
I think the women’s flyweight and strawweight divisions are better off without Valentina and Weili. The divisions really open up without the two dominant, minimally-active champs. While jogging this morning, I listened to a podcast that had a guest cohost propose Valentina should move up to bantamweight and face
the winner of Kayla vs. Amanda, and he claimed it would solve multiple problems. Do you agree with his take?
I do agree with this take. That sounds like a wise and brilliant man. (It’s me; I’m the guy he’s referring to).
For those of you who watch our shows, this will not be a new take for you, but I wanted to write about it anyway because I genuinely believe this to be one of my greatest ideas ever. Even better than MMAjors, and those are gold: The UFC should sit down with Valentina Shevchenko and politely inform her that her services are no longer needed at 125 pounds.
“WHAT?!” you say, shocked and appalled that I would disrespect one of the greatest fighters in history in such a manner. But that’s only because you don’t have the vision; you can’t see what I see.
Look out at the state of women’s MMA right now. Just look at it. Would you say the three women’s weight classes in the UFC are thriving? Of course not. They are arguably the worst they’ve ever been. Strawweight and bantamweight are populated by many of the same names from nearly a decade ago, and flyweight is stuck living under the oppressive yoke of, in my opinion, the greatest female fighter of all time. There’s no juice, no excitement, and very little intrigue. We’ve started to get some new blood coming up, but those are still just seeds; the harvest is not yet ready.
But dear reader, what if I told you that I can inject a shot of life into ALL THREE women’s divisions with just one move: forcing Shevchenko to move up to 135 pounds.
Think about it. Women’s bantamweight is probably the worst weight class in the entire sport right now. I mean, it has NOTHING going on outside of the title fight between Kayla Harrison and Amanda Nunes that was just announced for UFC 334. That fight rocks, but what comes next? Will Harrison or Nunes stick around to fight Joselyne Edwards? Would anyone care if she did?
No, women’s bantamweight needs any port in the storm to stay afloat, and the only remotely interesting or viable port right now is Shevchenko. If Nunes wins, she and Shevy have history, and that trilogy is for the undisputed WMMA GOAT belt. If Harrison wins, she gets a chance to add another legend to a resumé that’s sorely lacking in them. And for Shevchenko, it’s a chance to do the one thing she hasn’t done and make her career unparalleled.
But Shevchenko moving up does so much more than save bantamweight (at least for another year); think about what it does for flyweight. Dominant champions are good for MMA, but they’re bad for divisions. When every fight feels like a predetermined win, the only excitement for fans is the rare upset, and the vain hope of them.
We look back in awe of Demetrious Johnson and Anderson Silva and Jon Jones, but I lived through those title reigns, and I remember the general malaise around many of those fights because we knew what would happen. Shevchenko has mostly lived in that zone for the past eight years (with a two-year break for the Alexa Grasso trilogy). Shevchenko’s greatness has dimmed the shine of dozens of other fighters, and the possible intrigue they could bring.
When the UFC first announced that Shevchenko was vacating the title, I thought it was it was transparent and silly (and it is), but then my very next thought was, “Man, flyweight’s kinda fun if she’s not there anymore.” When the cat’s away, the mice can play, and imagine how much more interesting 125 pounds gets when Natalia Silva, Alexa Grasso, Erin Blanchfield, Manon Fiorot, Wang Cong, and others are suddenly in a Queen of the Hill battle royale instead of each pushing a Sisyphean boulder up Mount Shevchenko?
But the true beauty of this move is the knock-on effects, because if Shevchenko is gone from 125 pounds, then that means Zhang Weili doesn’t need to go back to 115.
Like Shevy, Zhang’s presence at strawweight, at this point, does more harm than good, because she’s simply so much better than everyone that the rest of the weight class has no room to grow. It’s hilarious that Mackenzie Dern is a UFC champion at this point, but it’s significantly more interesting to see which of these various contenders will unseat her than it is to watch an endless parade of lambs to the Zhang slaughterhouse.
And like Shevchenko with Silva or Cong, if you send Zhang back down to 115 to reclaim the title, then it just reveals what a mummer’s farce the Dern title reign was. Everyone already believes Dern to be a paper champion, but better for that to be idle chatter than prove them all right by sending her to the gallows. And for what? Who else is there for Zhang to fight until Fatima Kline levels up?
No, the answer is simple, my friends: for the good of the sport, Valentina Shevchenko needs to move back up to 135 pounds. Sit her cageside at Madison Square Garden as a statement of intent, and let’s have “Bullet” save the sport.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who sent in questions! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because every week I put a prompt into The Feed for your questions. Fire them there, and I’ll answer the best ones in the Mailbag and try to get to the rest in the responses.
