Here's the match video of Valentina Shevchenko vs Sarah Kaufman from last night's UFC show in Orlando, FL. It aired on the prelims on Fox Sports 1 in the US and TSN in Canada. Valentina is a Muay Thai champ who has dabbled in MMA for several years but has started taking MMA more seriously over the last couple of years. Of course Sarah is a big step up in competition for Valentina. She trains at Tiger Muay Thai and splits her time between Lima, Peru and Houston. She took this fight on eight days notice. But they didn't tell you on the broadcast that she was training for a scheduled fight in January. Sarah is a former Strikeforce champ whose career has been on a steady decline for several years. She could be on the chopping block if she doesn't win. I thought Valentina had a good chance to win if she doesn't poop out early in the fight. She surprised Rogan and Goldberg by taking the fight to the ground in round one. I wasn't surprised because Sarah isn't very good on the ground. I think it was smart strategy. Valentina didn't try for a submission but she did enough to win the first two rounds. So going into round three, Sarah needs a finish. It's not enough to just win the round. The problem is Sarah hasn't finished a fight in several years. She has become a points fighter. So Sarah won round three by maintaining top position. But her attempts to try to get a submission were feeble at best. She has never won a fight by submission. She should have mounted Valentina and tried for a ground and pound finish. By the time she did that, it was way too late in the round. Remaining in side control for that length of time just shows that Sarah doesn't know what she is doing on the ground. And that's why her career is in decline. The competition has caught up to her and she hasn't improved enough to keep pace. She still trying to win fights the way she won them a few years ago and that's not good enough anymore. I scored the fight 29-28 for Valentina and so did two of the judges. The third judge scored it 30-27 for Sarah. The same idiot judge did this earlier in the show in the Nik Lentz vs Danny Castillo fight. I guess he's one of these Florida boxing judges who shouldn't be judging MMA. And you wonder why UFC president Dana White doesn't like doing shows in Florida. The AC there is a joke. So Valentina won by split decision but it should have been unanimous. That's why there was a delay with the scorecards. It was a great UFC debut on short notice for Valentina. Could this be the end for Sarah Kaufman? We'll see. Enjoy the video.
sarahv by AFFV
I will bet it the same idiot judge who also scored it 30-27 in the second women's fight later on that night between Randa and Karolina and kept right on with the awful scoring all night long. Now I understand why Dana White does not like doing MMA in Florida.
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