Valentina Shevchenko – Jessica Andrade. Forecast and announcement for the fight

UFC 261 tournament bout

The fight will take place on the night from Saturday to Sunday, April 25. Approximate start of the battle at 06:00 Kyiv time. The fight will be broadcast live on Setanta Sports.

Valentina Shevchenko will make her fifth defense of the UFC women’s flyweight title against Jessica Andrade.

Shevchenko has held the title since December 2018 after defeating Joanna Jedrzejczyk. In 2019, the Bullet held two defenses, knocking out Jessica Eye and taking a confident revenge on points from Liz Karmouche. In 2020, Shevchenko also defended her belt twice, in February she finished with blows from Kathleen Chookagian, and 9 months later she defeated Jennifer Maia by unanimous decision.

Andrade has a 1-0 record as a flyweight. She made her debut in the category last October with a first-round knockout victory over Chookagyan. Before that, Jessica fought in the minimum division, where she was the UFC champion. She took the title from Rose Namajunas after knocking her out with a slam in May 2019. After 3.5 months, Andrade went to China to be knocked out in 42 seconds by Weili Zhang, and in July 2020, the Brazilian lost to Namajunas in a rematch by a split verdict and after that decided to change the category.

Prediction for the fight

Shevchenko is a recognized master of Muay Thai. She is one of the best strikers in the entire women’s division of MMA. Valentina skillfully defends herself from takedowns and works on counterattacks.

Andrade is physically powerful and dangerous in the standing and ground positions. However, she lacks ingenuity and cannot always keep a high pace throughout the fight, which cannot be said about Shevchenko, who has complete order with endurance.

We expect that after more or less equal first two rounds, Shevchenko will continue to dominate and either lead the matter to a confident victory on the scorecards, or manage to finish the contender with a volume of blows.

Shevchenko’s victory by knockout in the 4th round

Main card

Kamaru Usman – Jorge Masvidal
Zhang Weili – Rose Namajunas

Valentina Shevchenko – Jessica Andrade
Chris Wideman Uriah Hall
Anthony Smith – Jimmy Cool

preliminary card

Alex Oliveira – Randy Brown
Dwight Grant – Stefan Sekulich
Brandon Allen – Carl Roberson
Tristan Connelly – Pat Sabatini
Danaa Batgerel – Kevin Natividad
Rodrigo Vargas – Zu Rong
Jeff Molina Keeleng Ori
Ariana Carnelossi – Na Liang

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