5 reasons Valentina Shevchenko is better than Ronda Rousey was

Valentina Shevchenko is the dominant force in women's MMA. Ronda Rousey, by contrast, was. Now retired from mixed martial arts, Rousey is a pioneer of women's MMA and its first big crossover star.

Her inimitable in-cage performances and brash confidence earned her such a massive following that even UFC president Dana White, who once infamously claimed women would never fight in the UFC, was forced to eat his own words and build an entire division for Rousey after signing her.

While this led to a surging interest in women's MMA, Rousey was not without her shortcomings as both a competitor and representative of the sport. Valentina Shevchenko, on the other hand, is better for multiple reasons, which this list will now detail.

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#5 Valentina Shevchenko is well-rounded

As a fighter, Rousey's goal was to close the distance and enter the clinch where she'd set up throws and trips to force the fight to the ground.

Any opponent swinging wildly at her in the hopes of deterring her from closing the distance only ever provided her with a stray arm to drag while they're off-balance. On the ground, she often hooked her arm over one of her opponent's, gifting her foe the underhook.

Whenever her opponents eagerly sought to initiate scrambles using the underhook she gave them, Rousey immediately entangled their arm with her legs for an armbar setup.

This was facilitated by Rousey's Judo takedowns, which often landed her in side control, so she never needed to make as many transitions to be in position to attack her opponent's arm.

Unfortunately, while much of her game depended on her ability to enter the clinch, Rousey was poor at closing the distance. Her movement was completely linear as she would not step across her opponents to cut off their escape angles when they circled away.

Worse still, she followed her opponents without moving her head off the center-line when she threw punches, nor did she keep her chin tucked. This caused her to run into punches by the only two women she ever fought with good distance management: Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.

Shevchenko, by contrast, has a more well-rounded skill-set as she is a technical counter-striker who stands just at the end of her opponent's kicking range, pulling her leg away whenever they try kicking it, making them miss. Once they're out of position, she punishes them with back kicks.

If they lunge in, she hops back to reestablish long range, leaning away to force her opponent into overextending before countering them with a check hook.

She is similarly comfortable grappling, often using her striking to establish a rhythm before ducking under her opponent's punches the next time they lunge forward, securing a bodylock and tripping them to the ground where she neutralizes her foes with her positional grappling. She is comfortable anywhere the fight goes while Ronda was not.

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#4 Valentina Shevchenko did better against women who defeated Rousey

Not only was Valentina Shevchenko undersized at bantamweight, heightening her successes in the weight class, but she fared much better against the women to whom Rousey lost.

While Rousey was KO'd by both Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes in dominant fashion, Valentina Shevchenko defeated Holly with a uninamous decision win and took Nunes to close decision losses, with many scoring their 2nd fight for Shevchenko.

Furthermore, Shevchenko's record at bantamweight is 12-3 to Rousey's 8-2 as the latter's first four bouts were contested at higher weight classes.

Thus, despite never winning a title at bantamweight, Valentina Shevchenko performed admirably in a heavier division and did better against the only two opponents she shares with Rousey.

Additionally, both Holm and Nunes are among the biggest bantamweights, having both fought at featherweight while Shevchenko is currently a flyweight, rendering her performances against both even more impressive by comparison.

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#3 Shevchenko deals with losses better

Valentina Shevchenko did not sign with the UFC off the back of an unprecedented win streak. Rousey, on the other hand, was regarded as an unstoppable force of nature for most of her career.

After suffering losses early in her career, Shevchenko learned to swallow her pride and take each loss as a lesson instead. Thus, she learned to improve her skill-set after every loss instead of questioning her own self-worth as Rousey did.

When Shevchenko lost to Nunes, she built herself back up, defeating former bantamweight champion Holly Holm and current bantamweight champion Julianna Pena en route to a rematch with Nunes.

In their 2nd outing, Shevchenko did significantly better, forcing a split-decision out of Nunes. While Valentina Shevchenko ultimately lost the bout on the judges' scorecard, many in the MMA world felt she had won the fight.

In comparison, Rousey refused to face any cameras after losing to Holm, demanded that no interviewer ask her about the loss in the leadup to her fight with Nunes, and ultimately retired from the sport after losing to Nunes as well.

Valentina Shevchenko, by contrast, has become the reigning flyweight champion since suffering her last loss.

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#2 She is a better representative of the sport

Rousey was the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in Judo, endearing herself to American followers of the grappling art. On the other hand, Valentina Shevchenko is a better representative of the sport of MMA despite not having a similar following in kickboxing.

Shevchenko has the potential for a wider international reach as an ambassador for women's MMA. She conducts herself in a more respectful manner compared to Rousey's abrasive style of engagement, rendering people with negative opinions about MMA more likely to listen to her.

Furthermore, Valentina Shevchenko is a citizen of both Peru and her native country of Kyrgyzstan. She is trilingual, able to speak English, Russian, and Spanish, rendering her a more varied and effective communicator than Rousey.

She can connect with a wider group of potential MMA fans in countries where all three languages are spoken. Due to her linguistic skills allowing her to connect with people from different backgrounds, Valentina Shevchenko will be more easily accepted by a global audience.

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#1 She has more title defenses and victories over champions

At UFC 275, Valentina Shevchenko increased her title defense tally to seven. With seven title defenses to her name, she became the woman with the highest number of title defenses in UFC history.

The previous record holder was Rousey herself with six title defenses. Not only does Valentina Shevchenko have the most title defenses in UFC women's history, but she also holds wins over more UFC champions, both former and current, than Rousey does.

Rousey twice defeated Miesha Tate, who went on to become the bantamweight champion after her rival's retirement.

Valentina Shevchenko, by comparison, has wins over former strawweight champions Jessica Andrade and Joanna Jędrzejczyk, former bantamweight champion Holly Holm, who bested Rousey, and current bantamweight champion Julianna Pena.