Valentina Shevchenko is 55% certain Rose Namajunas beats Zhang Weili at UFC 261

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4 years ago

Valentina Shevchenko looks during Q&A session of Fan Experience at UFC Performance Institute on June 21, 2019 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by Yifan Ding/Getty Images)

Women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko reveals she is 55% confident that Rose Namajunas can beat Zhang Weili at UFC 261.

One of the biggest UFC events of the year is just a couple of days away. UFC 261 features a stacked card with three title fights. It is headlined by Kamaru Usman vs Jorge Masvidal – a high-voltage rematch.

March 8, 2020, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA: UFC Strawweight Championship Zhang WeiliRed Corner vs Joanna JedrzejczykBlue Corner at UFC 248. Martial Arts 2020: UFC 248 PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY – ZUMA 20200308mdas253673 Copyright: xMarcusxStevensx

The two other title fights feature a women’s strawweight championship bout between Zhang Weili and Rose Namajunas, which is also the co-main event; and Valentina Shevchenko vs Jessica Andrade, for the women’s flyweight title.

The event will be held at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida, in front of 15000 fans. This is the first UFC event hosted in America with fans allowed, since the pandemic began.

Rose Namajunas celebrates a win in the UFC (Image credit: Getty)

More recently, Bullet Valentina spoke to Damon Martin of MMA Fighting, and was asked to give her prediction for the title fight between Weili and Namajunas.

Saying that it was a tough fight to predict, Shevchenko leaned slightly in favour of Namajunas. She said :

“I think they are preparing very good for this fight. They will be trying the hardest they can to get the victory. I have 45 percent for Weili and 55 percent for Rose.”

Zhang Weili’s coach reveals if she would put on weight to fight Valentina Shevchenko

With a crunch match coming up against Rose Namajunas, Weili will be looking forward to defending her strawweight title successfully. There have been talks of the Chinese moving up a weight class to challenge the immovable force that is – Valentina Shevchenko.

Valentina Shevchenko celebrates her win over Julianna Pena in the women’s Bantamweight division. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

In a recent interview with South China Morning Post, Weili’s Strength and Conditioning coach Ruben Payan Jr explained if the champ would put on weight to move up a weight class and fight Shevchenko.

Payan Jr said:

“I don’t necessarily mean she would necessarily need to be bigger. She would definitely be much stronger – we would emphasize more strength which doesn’t necessarily mean more size because she just wouldn’t have to cut so much weight. I don’t see that that’s a difficult fight for her to make with strength and with weight and all of that, that’s easy.”