Natalia Silva: Valentina Shevchenko never fights but says ‘Keep the belt warm’
Natalia Silva is the new women’s flyweight champion, and she’s not going to let former 125 pound champ Valentina Shevchenko talk trash from the sidelines about it.
In a perfect world, Silva and Shevchenko would have fought at UFC 332 for the undisputed title. But an injury to “Bullet” resulted in her being forced to relinquish her title. Silva would beat No. 6 ranked Wang Cong for the belt, which is technically undisputed but widely viewed as a placeholder title until Valentina returns.
Not by Silva herself, though. The new Brazilian champion snapped back at Shevchenko, who had sent a relatively respectful message to the new champ about ‘keeping my belt warm.’
“The belt isn’t hers, the belt is mine, and I’m going to take good care of it,” Silva told MMA Fighting. “Keep it warm, right? She wasn’t even keeping it warm herself. She would take a year between fights. She was fighting once a year, and now she’s talking about keeping the belt warm?”
In contrast, Natalia wants to fight again as quickly as possible and as frequently as possible.
“I want to fight soon, I don’t want to sit around,” she said. “I like fighting. I haven’t gotten injured, I don’t get injured in my fights, so I want to take advantage of my youth, right? I want to fight more frequently.”
Whether that fight comes against champ Valentina Shevchenko or No. 1 contender Alexa Grasso really depends on who’s ready. In Silva’s mind, it’s all about defending the championship and not who the opponents are.
“To be honest, I’m not worried about Valentina anymore,” Silva said. “I wanted to fight her because she was the champion, because she had what I wanted. She had the belt. Now, whether it’s her or someone else, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m the champion now, and I’m the one who has to defend the title.”
“I don’t even have to think about Valentina. If she wants to fight when she comes back, and there isn’t another fight that needs to happen, we can fight. But we also have to look at the rankings and the queue because there are some girls who are doing really well and deserve to be fighting, you know?”
We can appreciate this level of bravado coming from the new champ. Strawweight champ Mackenzie Dern barely mentions the absent Weili Zhang’s name, lest the Chinese star magically re-appear on the scene like an MMA “Bloody Mary.” Meanwhile, Silva is talking trash and handling the Shevchenko situation head on. It probably won’t help her win in the cage when “Bullet” returns, but we appreciate the attitude.