Valentina Shevchenko’s coach, Pavel Fedotov, has revealed the reason she withdrew from the planned UFC 332 fight against Natalia Silva. The Shevchenko vs. Silva fight was rumored to have been the October 3 main event, and would have had Shevchenko’s flyweight championship on the line. She is no longer listed as the women’s champion.
“We were supposed to fight on October 3 against Natália Silva, but due to an injury to the ligaments in the shoulder and back we decided not to push things and postpone the fight,” Fedotov said.
Shevchenko first won the flyweight title in 2018 — her seventh UFC fight at that time — when she defeated Joanna Jedrzejczyk by decision. She made seven successful defenses of the belt, before losing by fourth-round submission to Alexa Grasso’s face crank in 2023.
Shevchenko and Grasso fought three times in quick succession, with Shevchenko sharing a draw with her in 2023 before a win via decision the following year to reclaim her title. She has since defended it against Manon Fiorot in May, 2025, and Zhang Weili in November, last year. Both wins were by decision. She has not returned to the Octagon since, even though a third defense was tentatively discussed for early October.
While Fedotov said the decision to postpone the fight was just a temporary measure, it had a broader consequence as Shevchenko was forced to relinquish the flyweight title, leading the UFC to change the Salt Lake City main event to Silva vs Cong Wang for the vacated belt.
Once Shevchenko recovers from her injury, which is expected to take up to a year, the UFC has promised her a shot at regaining her 125-pound title.