Antonina Shevchenko Defeats Valerie Domergue

     Antonina Shevchenko adds another victory to her MMA resume after soundly defeating Valerie Domergue in a lopsided 3 round bout.  The fight started slow with Valerie using lateral movement, jumping in intermittently attempting to land shots but was unsuccessful.  By the midway point of the second round Valerie was in survival mode.  By the 3rd round it looked as if Valerie wanted to quit as Shevchenko was throwing fierce flurries and landing flush shots almost at will.  Domergue had absolutely no answers.

     This often seems to be the case with opponents of Antonina.  It's as if they see a totally different fighter in the fight than they saw during film study.  The counter striking skills of Antonina seemed to frustrate Valerie, which is another constant in Antonina's fights.  Even when she takes the lead her opponents seem unprepared to deal with the attack.  Their heads always end up snapping back from clean shots, and the sound of her shin smacking against their body echos across the arena and they simply have no answer.

     Such is the deception of Antonina Shevchenko.  The biggest difference between Antonina and Valentina is speed and framing.  Because of Antonina's larger body structure her strikes are not as dazzling to the eye, and are not framed in the picture perfect fashion as Valentina's strikes.  This is the deception, because what opponents don't understand is that Antonina has impeccable timing and accuracy.  For example, George Foreman in his later years was very VERY slow, but his timing was excellent.  As a result he was able to land a high percentage of his shots.  Speed is not as much of a factor as knowing when to release your shots.  When oppoents fight Antonina they find themselves getting hit constantly because she knows the exact time to release. Likewise, without great timing a fighter with great speed will not be as accurate.

     Thus, the greatness of the Shevchenko sisters is the combination of many elements.  Balance, timing, angles, positioning, distance management, and shot selection.  These traits are often difficult to detect on film, but they are very easy to detect when you're in an actual fight against either sister.  This is why opponents may think Antonina is not very dangerous when they look at her on film, but when they are in the fight they look bamboozled, and seem unprepared to deal with her offense.

     People may not fully understand how great Antonina is until she is in the octagon deconstructing their favorite UFC fighter.  She is a technician.  She takes the first 2 to 5 minutes to process her opponents style and capabilities and then begins to deconstruct them.  Valerie is lucky that fight was scheduled for only 3 rounds.  She started opening up and landing shots on Valerie soo comprehensively that there were moments in the third round where it looked like she wanted to the referee to step in.  She had started to deteriorate from the punishment at the same time that Antonina was just getting warmed up.  Had that fight been set for five rounds it's hard to imagine how Valerie would have made it to the final bell.  Congratulations to Antonina on a brilliant and beautiful performance, and we look forward to seeing her back in action again.