“I have enough for aviation and training.” Shevchenko – on his career, his sister’s fight and his bruises

Older sister of the UFC champion, Valentina Shevchenko, Antonina, arrived in the Thai boxing section two years earlier than Valentina. She made her MMA debut in 2002, entered the UFC with a 6-0 record, but then began to struggle in battles against not-so-famous athletes. Now Antonina has an early two-game losing streak and a rival with a 10-9 MMA record.

– You posted photos with bruises after the fight on your social networks. Provided that girls are more attentive to their appearance – as you yourself perceivedo you have your pictures?

– Naturally, when you have played sports all your life, which gives such a face from time to time, you are already used to it. The only thing is, when you post pictures after the fight, your face is still so beat up. But the next day, when everything swells and gets worse, then you don’t post too scary pictures. But I think it’s kinda cute too. In a certain way.

– Did you have a moment called “you scared yourself in the mirror”?

– I think that if I had something, then the unpleasant sensations appeared from the fight, from the fact that it happened, and not from the face. Again, straight after the fight, things don’t look so bad. Everything seems much worse on the second or third day. But! There is a badyaga magic remedy, which helps a lot.

– And tonal creams, masks…

“They do much worse. In general, when everything goes wrong, edema appears there. And maybe there are pills that relieve swelling, but in my experience badyaga is only number one. And dark glasses.

— You have a tattoo on your shoulder blade. What is shown there, and who made it?

– This is Athena, the Greek goddess, the patroness of warriors. We did it in Thailand, in a good place where they knew what they were doing well. The drawing is complex: there are such complex images, and the image itself is very beautiful. I wanted it not to be spoiled. But everything worked out, I’m glad to have her in such a design, because we did this tattoo in 2014, and she’s still in great shape.

– Your pre-UFC mixed martial arts stats are 6 wins, 0 losses. UFC 3 wins, 4 losses. And right now, a two-game losing streak. How do you perceive this stage of your career?

“I don’t take it very well, I don’t like it. I don’t like my last two losses. Especially the last one. I think I should have won the last fight. Of course, when I go back to the training, I think about it all the time, every training session I somehow try to correct the situation.

– Let’s say you don’t “justify yourself to the haters”, as athletes usually say, but explain to normal people why you can keep rooting. What happened in the last fight?

– I can explain. It’s MMA, it’s a specific fight and a specific situation. All the fighters are very good, all aim to win. You cannot allow an adversary who is good at something to end up in an extreme situation. Clearly I knew the girl was going to fight with me, do something on the pitch. There were times when I could do something and get out of the throw. There it was necessary to explode and act faster, despite the fatigue. I missed this moment, she took a good position and there was already little chance of getting out of it. There were several hits that knocked me down, diluted concentration. The result was a chain of reactions: I missed the leg pass, I let myself go on the mount, I missed a few shots. And already then physically could not react quickly. And there she already began to scare the referee and the fight was stopped.

– Do you have the feeling that MMA fights are basically spare parts: a football team plays 30 to 50 matches a year. Hockey – from 50 to 100. A fighter fights 2-3-4 times. That is, on this day, something can go wrong.

– Absolutely. Brad Riddell fought in the last tournament. And he admitted that he was well prepared, we remember him from training at Tiger. He goes out, misses a shot and loses in the first minute. It’s MMA, it’s small gloves, no matter how hard you get ready, you lose focus for about a second and end the fight.

– A popular version is that you are no longer very interested in your MMA career, that you are more involved in flight training and some daily activities…

– Of course not! I spend a lot of time training. In fact, a person can divide his life between different things. I have enough for aviation and training. I started preparing for this fight in January – it could have happened in April. And there I am preparing all this time with a break to recover from an injury. Yes, when the training is not intense, I try to fly because I like it. And yes, my soul wants to fly when I’m free. But it’s the same with training. Without training and without a gym, I don’t know how my life would have turned out.

– It is customary for athletes to ask what changed after the defeat. But you have been training with your sister and coach Pavel Fedotov since childhood. Can you imagine changes in your training path?

You see, I have nothing to change. I have a good base, a good striking technique. I need to add. Do not change, but add. In MMA, in general, everyone has to add. I need more wrestling, some style adaptability, the ability to transition from wrestling to punches, etc.

— Your younger sister Valentina recently defended the title. The fight was hard for her and in one of the breaks you said “you know everything yourself”. From this moment, I think about what was discussed.

– So, well, I said “you know everything yourself” just so the others wouldn’t know that she knows. And you ask… Actually, it seemed to be after the third round, and I meant that if Valya doesn’t come out two rounds, we don’t know what will happen.

– Valentina was not injured in this fight?

“No, no, everything was fine.

– Why did she decide to transfer her opponent to the ground in the fifth round, if she had all the problems after losing positions in the fight?

– There were different situations: the first, second, third and fifth rounds are different pictures of the battle. At first, the opponent went behind her back when Valya started throwing her. But [Тайла Сантос], on the one hand, it is good in itself, and on the other hand, it was bigger this time. In general, she seemed able to counter and go behind his back. The same thing happened in the second and third rounds. In other words, in this battle and in these situations, she managed to lead the fight in her direction. And when I said “you know it all yourself”, I meant that Tayla can take advantage of the situation after the throws. I meant “no need to go to fight, you have great punching technique”.

– So you wouldn’t support Valentina’s decision to fight in the fifth round?

– Listen, it’s important here that Valentina broke her in the fourth round and the fifth [Сантос] was already more broken, more tired. And Valino’s decision, I think, was like that, because she wanted to finish him off on the court and not bring him to a judge’s decision. The fight was in a standing position, it was not possible to knock out in a standing position. Valentina wanted to leave Santos and end up on the floor (Valentina Shevchenko won via split decision. – ).

Watch the fight between Antonina Shevchenko and Courtney Casey live on early in the morning of July 10.