What martial arts does Valentina Shevchenko use in the UFC?

Throughout MMA history, few women have lit up the octagon like Valentina Shevchenko. She is one of the few female fighters to have reached the staggering milestone of over 20 professional wins as well as the UFC Flyweight belt which is why she is deservedly held in high esteem.

Even more impressive is that two of her losses have come from Amanda Nunes, who is often referred to as the female GOAT when it comes to MMA. Anyway, this article shall be looking at the martial arts used by Valentina Shevchenko whilst fighting.

You don’t get to the top of the UFC whilst being a one-trick pony and this is certainly the case with Shevchenko who knows a lot about combat sports. Although she is primarily viewed as a kickboxer, it’s fair to say that Shevchenko is very versatile as an MMA fighter.

Martial arts used by Valentina Shevchenko

Kickboxing

Before her career in MMA, Shevchenko had a brilliant kickboxing record. She got into kickboxing aged 12 but had previously spent years training Taekwondo, meaning that she began with a strong fundamental understanding of power, timing, and flexibility when it came to throwing kicks. Here, she retired with a 57-2 record. Unlike MMA, these records aren’t too rare in kickboxing and other sports, where fighters can easily rack up lots of fights.

During her kickboxing career, she won multiple belts and K-1 titles which isn’t surprising considering her record. This helped earn her the nickname of ‘the bullet’ due to her quick striking techniques and also earned her the title of ‘Master of Sports’ within the field. This is basically the equivalent of being a high-level black belt who is recognized as an expert in kickboxing.

Taekwondo

As mentioned, Shevchenko was also a distinguished Taekwondo fighter long before she even began kickboxing. In fact, she started training aged 5 years old. This is a very young age – so when most kids are starting school, she was learning how to kick people in the head. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that she is so good at kicks.

In the early 2000s, she won three ITF golds which given the circumstances is to be expected. One of the main benefits of training Taekwondo is the ability to throw long-range, flexible kicks with relative ease. In her UFC fight against Jessica Eye, Shevchenko demonstrated this beautifully by knocking her out with a hard head kick. Although some people are critical of TKD, it can often serve as a strong base when it comes to kicking-based martial arts. As of now, Shevchenko is currently a second-degree TKD black belt.

Muay Thai

Arguably, kickboxing and Taekwondo are relatively similar when it comes to their styles – with kickboxing being the better of the two when it comes to throwing punches. To complement these disciplines, Shevchenko would then go on to learn Muay Thai which further tightened up her striking game.

Once again, her relationship with striking-martial arts was another successful one. Here, she began training this alongside kickboxing as a teen. She would go on to win even more belts including IFMA and WMF including fights won in Thailand. Interestingly during her Muay Thai career, she would defeat Joanna Jedrzejczyk on three separate occasions. As fate would have it, they would also meet in the UFC years later, where Shevchenko would win once again by decision.

At this time, Jedrzejczyk was widely regarded as one of the best Muay Thai fighters around – which meant Shevchenko was even more recognized. This resulted in her being awarded the International Master of Sports within Muay Thai, which would be yet another accolade to her glittering career.

As you may have figured, Muay Thai is also great for MMA when initiating a clinch. Whilst kickboxing and TKD are great, they also lack the elbows and knees that Muay Thai is known for, which would have made Shevchenko less of a fighter if she never learned the art.

Boxing

Although Shevchenko is known for her kicks, she’s also a skilled boxer and in 2007 became the Russian amateur champion. Unlike her previous martial arts ventures, she only fought twice before retiring to focus on MMA. Here, she went undefeated with a 2-0 record.

Usually, most MMA fighters will try to compete in as many different skill sets as possible, to become as varied as they possibly can. This looks to be the case with Shevchenko. Obviously, her skills lie in kicks but this is a good example of going outside of your comfort zone. Often in MMA, there’s a lot of boxing too, so this was a sensible decision in that regard.

Judo and grappling

Going back to the early 2000s yet again, Shevchenko won even more belts but this time it was in Judo. Since then, she has earned the rank of black belt in Judo, which typically takes around five years to achieve.

Honestly, as good as she is when it comes to striking, you cannot get away with being too one-dimensional in the UFC. Perhaps in easier promotions, this is possible, but remember the UFC is the best MMA promotion in the world. So, it makes sense that Shevchenko would learn Judo to solidify the grappling areas of her game.

In her win against Holly Holm, Shevchenko put on a Judo clinic and showed that she was also an elite grappler. Although this isn’t her strongest point, it still shows how rounded she is when you can easily throw the likes of Holly Holm. This also shows strategy on Shevchenko’s behalf as Holm was equally known as a skilled kickboxer, so it may have been unwise to try and stand with her. Here, she showed great fight IQ.

During her time in MMA, Shevchenko has racked up seven submission victories which represent one-third of her wins. With this said, she’s clearly a decent grappler. Often, many of these wins happened in her earlier MMA career against easier opponents, but it still shows her technical ability when it comes to submissions. Often, these included rear-naked chokes and armbars.

Other forms of grappling

This leads us to our next point that Shevchenko is also skilled in other grappling arts, including wrestling and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Previously, she has also wrestled a little during her younger days which also makes sense for MMA.

Elsewhere, although Judo does submissions, it’s a bigger emphasis in BJJ – especially using the rear-naked choke which is fairly rare in Judo. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that her grappling ability may be a black belt in BJJ too, although she’s most likely one of those MMA fighters that are rarely graded or train in the gi which is understandable.

Summary

As you can see, Valentina Shevchenko is a highly-skilled martial artist and has successfully applied her background to the UFC. She also began training aged 5 and had a pretty intense childhood where martial arts are concerned.

With this said, it’s really not surprising that she is so good when it comes to fighting. This makes sense considering her mother is the president of Kyrgyzstan’s national Muay Thai association and was a champion during her fighting days. Sometimes, fighters are drawn to MMA, but it seems that in this case, Shevchenko truly was born to fight and is very skilled and rounded when it comes to martial arts.