Last week the UFC announced that Germaine de Randamie had dropped out of her fight with Sarah Kaufman at UFC on FOX 17 Dec. 19 at the Amway Center in Orlando, FL. with an injury. Last night they announced that Valentina Shevchenko will be Sarah's new opponent. I would describe Valentina as a veteran kickboxer who has dabbled in MMA. Of course her signing says that she isn't dabbling anymore. The UFC has been after her for the last year and she was very reluctant to give up kickboxing. I'm pretty sure they paid a premium to get her to sign. Valentina is 27 years old. She was born in Kyrgystan and she moved to Lima, Peru in 2008. She now trains at Tiger Muay Thai in Houston and it looks like she goes back and forth from Peru. She has a 60-1 kickboxing record and a 9-1 MMA record. That might look good but that's ten MMA fights since 2003. So that's why I say she has dabbled in MMA. She has gone long periods without fighting MMA. She seems to have made a renewed commitment to MMA over the last year when she signed with Legacy Fighting Championships. But they also promote kickboxing so she was doing both. Her most recent MMA fight was a win over Jan Finney on Feb. 27, 2015. That's the best known fighter she has beaten. She also lost to Liz Carmouche in 2010. As an MMA fighter, I would describe her as unproven because she hasn't fought MMA at a high level of competition. So Sarah Kaufman is a big step up in competition. Valentina is coming in on short notice. But she had a fight for Legacy scheduled for January. So she was already in a training camp. Sarah is not a kickboxer but she isn't very good on the ground. Valentina is similar to Germaine so Sarah shouldn't have to change her strategy much. Conventional wisdom says this will be a kickboxing match. Unless Valentina wants to switch things up and show her ground skills. That would make things interesting.
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