Here's the match video of Valentina Shevchenko defending her UFC Flyweight Championship against Alexa Grasso from last night's UFC show in Las Vegas. Valentina's usual training road show with coach Pavel Fedotov went to AACC in Tokyo, Japan. Of course Valentina is a Muay Thai fighter. Her safety first style almost cost her the title against Taila Santos. Alexa is from Guadalajara, Mexico. She trains at Lobo owned by her father. She has done well since moving up to Flyweight but she is mainly a boxer and her ground game probably isn't good enough. So this fight came down to one big mistake. Round one was mostly on the feet. I thought Alexa won the round marginally. It was close. Fedotov must have thought that too because in rounds two and three, Valentina took Alexa down and did a lay and pray to win both rounds. Ref Jason Herzog seemed to get frustrated with this and did stand them up once. So what Alexa needed to do in round four was avoid being taken down. Otherwise, Valentina was going to win by unanimous decision. So that strategy frustrated Valentina to the point of desperation. She tried a really bad spinning back kick that allowed Alexa to jump on Valentina's back and win with a rear naked choke. It just shows that in MMA, one stupid move can cost you a fight. Now that Alexa is champ, she has to prove that it wasn't a fluke. So I am expecting an immediate rematch probably in May when the UFC is planning a Cinco de Mayo show. Enjoy the video!
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