Valentina Shevchenko (16-3) is primed for a long reign at 125-pounds. The former women’s bantamweight title challenger finally got to compete at her preferred weight last year when the women’s flyweight division was introduced.
She would go on to maul Priscila Cachoeira at UFC Fight Night 125 earlier on in the year before outclassing former women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 231 in December to become the flyweight champion.
Next in line for “The Bullet” seems to be a title defense against Jessica Eye (14-6-1), who is on a three-fight winning streak and has campaigned for a title shot for a while.
No challengers for Shevchenko
With the 125-pound division still very young, there are not many standout contenders to choose from, and for fellow flyweight Gillian Robertson, Eye being Shevchenko’s next opponent makes sense.
However, she doesn’t see Shevchenko losing her title for a while.
“I feel like she’s [Eye] probably the one who deserves it the most right now,” Robertson explained to John Hyon Ko of The Body Lock.
“She’s ranked number one and she’s won her last few fights, but I still don’t think it’s a good matchup for her. I feel like Valentina is just at a point where she’s so far ahead of a lot of the girls in the division that a lot of people who will challenge her, they just won’t have a chance.”
“The division just needs to build up a little bit more. You can look at the 115-ers, the top five, top ten are killers while the 125-ers, we still need to build it up a little bit more.”
Robertson looking to grow as a fighter
Gillian Robertson (5-3) will be one of the fighters looking to help build the division up.
The American Top Team product, aged just 23, is 2-1 in the UFC and will be looking to get back in the win column when she takes on Veronica Macedo at UFC Fight Night 145 in Prague next week.
Although Macedo is winless in two fights in the UFC, a win for Robertson could see her on the verge of the top 15 of the flyweight rankings. But the rankings don’t matter for the Niagara Falls native, at least for now, as she looks to work her way up in the sport.
“I’m always ready to fight, I don’t care who it is, I’m always ready to go,” Robertson explained.
“It [the rankings] really doesn’t matter to me. I’m only 23, I’m still young in this sport. I have tons of time to get the belt and I’m willing to work my way up there so it doesn’t matter who is next.”
Robertson will be competing on the prelims of UFC Fight Night 145. The card will be headlined by a light heavyweight bout between Thiago Santos and Jan Blachowicz.
Hear all of Gillian Robertson’s interview with John Hyon Ko here in the video below.