At UFC 315, women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko defeated Manon Fiorot to notch the first defense of her second reign. During the post-fight press conference, she was asked about potentially fighting strawweight champion Weili Zhang next.

She responded:

“Everyone was saying before coming here, Weili or Natalia (Silva) as another contender? …Fan(s) can play some role in that if they join my OnlyFans page and drop some messages, who they want to see me fight next.”

Both Shevchenko and Zhang have expressed interest in the fight, but there are a few reasons why it should not happen, at least not yet.

Natalia Silva’s Emergence

Two fights before Shevchenko took on Fiorot, Natalia Silva took a unanimous decision victory over former champion Alexa Grasso. That fight was never close – the Brazilian completely flummoxed her opponent with deft footwork and fast kicks on her way to a sweep of the judges’ scorecards.

The dominant performance extended Silva’s current winning streak to 13 fights and propelled her to the No. 1 spot in the women’s flyweight rankings when they were updated Tuesday at midnight. The proposed superfight above may stall her ambitions, however.

Is Silva willing to put her current momentum at stake by taking another fight against, say, whoever wins between Erin Blanchfield and Maycee Barber at the end of this month? What if she loses? For a cautionary tale, she may want to look at the case of Joanne Wood.

Back in 2020, Wood forwent a previously-booked title shot against Shevchenko to fight Jennifer Maia. She lost the fight, and by extension, her title shot by armbar and completely fell out of contention soon after.

A similarly devastating loss against another contender could remove Silva from championship consideration, at least in the short term. Surely, she will be wary of it.

Silva is still arguably in a better situation than a compatriot of hers ten pounds south, though…

Virna Jandiroba’s Emergence

Virna Jandiroba is one of the most interesting fighters in the UFC today, male or female. She is an old-school grappler with a very potent ground game, constantly hunting for submissions – 14 of her 22 wins have come by that method.

A former champion in the all-women’s promotion Invicta, Jandiroba was signed by the UFC in 2019 and had a middling start to her stint in the Octagon, going 3-3 in her first six fights. Since 2022, however, she has been nothing but triumphant, winning five straight.

The last two of those wins have come against former title challengers Amanda Lemos and Xiaonan Yan, the latter of which propelled Jandiroba to No. 1 in the strawweight rankings. There is just one thing hindering her ambitions, however: Zhang wants Shevchenko next.

Should the superfight be booked, it will arguably not be the first time Jandiroba has been passed up for a title shot. “Carcara” had first stated her case after defeating Lemos, but the promotion initially booked her against Tatiana Suarez instead.

Being passed up for a second time now could prove detrimental to Jandiroba. At 37 years of age, she may be unwilling to sit again and potentially waste her competitive prime, unlike the 28-year-old Silva.

One possible opponent for Jandiroba, should Zhang move up, is sixth-ranked Mackenzie Dern, who is currently on a two-win streak and, most crucially, has a 2020 decision win over Jandiroba. Still, Jandiroba is highly unlikely to agree to stake all her momentum in a rematch while her division’s champion chases gold elsewhere.

Merit Over “Draw”

One potential argument in favor of the Shevchenko-Zhang superfight is that both Silva and Jandiroba are not “draws” – fighters who will attract PPV buys. While Shevchenko and Zhang have individually not been draws, a clash between the two is still arguably one of the two most intriguing women’s fights in MMA.

The marketing potential of such a fight should not take precedence over merit, however. A most recent example is the aftermath of the UFC 315 main event.

After Jack Della Maddalena defeated Belal Muhammad for the welterweight title, Dana White announced that Islam Makhachev would be vacating the lightweight title and moving up to challenge the Australian.  There is, however, already another deserving contender in the undefeated Shavkat Rakhmonov, who has been booked twice against Muhammad, only for both fights to fall through.

One can only ask why that fight was done to begin with. It clearly cannot be because Rakhmonov is not exciting; his last win against Ian Machado Garry was the first time he went to the scorecards in his career.

Soon, however, Rakhmonov may have to stake his momentum against someone else. Again, what if he loses? All the planned Della Maddalena-Makhachev fight does is stall his push.

Nationality should also not be considered when determining whether someone is a draw or not. Anderson Silva was a consistent draw throughout his UFC career, and he had at best a limited command of the English language. Instead, he built his reputation with his fighting ability, one that he excellently used to create a dominant reign that spanned ten title defenses.

Similarly, the mere fact that Silva and Jandiroba are Brazilians with little, if any, ability to speak English should not be taken against them. They have consistently put up strong and dominant performances in the cage, and such efforts should be recognized and rewarded.

End of My Shevchenko-Zhang Rant

This is not to say that superfights cannot be fun. Max Holloway vs. Justin Gaethje at UFC 300 was a thrilling spectacle of both violence and strategy, as both men sought to outduel each other until one could fight no more. One must consider their pre-fight situation, however: neither of them was a clear-cut top contender to their division’s champion.

In the case of Valentina Shevchenko and Weili Zhang, they each have a clear-cut top contender, both being Brazilian finishers whose performances have gone largely unnoticed until recent times. In a just world, Natalia Silva and Virna Jandiroba would be getting their just rewards and fighting their division’s respective champions. One can only hope that that world is also this world.