What happened to Valentina?

[IloveTHIS]

everyone no matter how great can have an off night/make a mistake

 

[jeff7b9]

She is 35, she has been doing martial arts since she was 5.

She competed as an amateur in kickboxing, muay Thai and Judo, then boxed and kickboxed professionally for years before transitioning to MMA.

35 is old anyway, but she also has crazy high milage and everyone in her division has been studying and preparing for her probably most of their career.

Jon is also 35.

Watch video of him in 2011 and watch video of him from Saturday night.
He is WAY slower.

Father time is a motherfucker.

 

[Kyojiro Kagenuma]

I think you’re in denial, pal. She is BEYOND arrogant. And people like you probably play a large part in that. She doesn’t accept her losses so why should you. It’s just a big circle jerk.

She lost to Taila, and you don’t acknowledge the headbutt that kept Shevchenko in that fight. She broke Taila’s orbital with it.. Remember? Exactly the way you don’t acknowledge the headbutt Pena caught Amanda with causing damage.

You are not honest at all. Plain and simple. How many threads are you going to spam the boards with this week?

She’s a duck. Is unbelievably disrespectful to her opponents. And is perfect in every way, apparently. Shevchenko got what she deserved. And you’re both salty as can be. That’s mma dude. Deal with it.

Big pride, equals big fall. And Alexa isn’t a shit talker. She won fair and square. Zero controversy. Let her enjoy her moment in the sun. She won the UFC belt by finishing Shevchenko. That’s in the record books forever.

K I agree he's a Valentina Stan but you're a clear hater. You're both extremely biased and equally wrong

 

[jeff7b9]

I'll say that doing a camp in Tokyo sounds a little bit distracted, but what do I know?

It is pretty standard for her. She basically travels the world training with her coach and her sister.

She talks often about the "martial arts lifestyle" and travel is part of how she keeps things interesting for herself this far into her career.

 

[Pepy]

35 years old.
27 MMA fights.
58 Kickboxing bouts.
Fought in Muay Thai beginning in 2003.

This isn't rocket science.

wall is undefeated

 

[Wonderfight]

She is definitely declining a little, but is still better than anyone in her division, proved even in defeat against a very good challenger. But you cannot eacape father (mother) time however skilled you are. She is on the other side od the 30s and that is just something that will influence her at least a bit.

 

[oscerthegrouch]

She seems to be on the decline to me. Her reaction speed is a step behind.. maybe an off night or more likely that she's 35 and declining.

to add to this her last fight we saw her making mistakes and getting hit more Even in woman's sport FATHER time is still undefeated

 

[Cobra 03]

When asked in a thread last month what Grasso's path to victory was, I respond with "Valentina will have to make a huge mistake, and grasso will have to capitalize on it perfectly.

and that's exactly what happened. Valentina pulled a chris weidman and threw a spinning kick from too close that cost her the fight.

Your the next Nostradamus, good call!

 

[mudrubble]

It is pretty standard for her. She basically travels the world training with her coach and her sister.

She talks often about the "martial arts lifestyle" and travel is part of how she keeps things interesting for herself this far into her career.

Yeah but Tokyo? It's my favourite city, sure. But to do a camp there? Sounds a bit distracted to me. Interesting NO DOUBT. But distracting.

 

[cmw43]

35 years old.
27 MMA fights.
58 Kickboxing bouts.
Fought in Muay Thai beginning in 2003.

This isn't rocket science.

That's it.

Most guys round here don't seem to accept that fighters get older and decline through injury and wear and tear of 20 years of fighting.

 

[aerius]

1) Grasso is a good fighter who's stepped up her game in each fight since moving up to 125. She had the best fight of her life so far and capitalized on the mistake from Valentina.

2) Valentina is slowing down. She's looked off in past fights (Carmouche, Maia, Taila) but this is the first time she's gotten worse in consecutive fights whereas in the past she's always been back to her normal self after a less than impressive fight. Age, mileage, your body not responding the way you're used to, can't do nothing about that.

 

[Doughie99]

What do you guys think? Is she really old now and past her prime or she just had an off night ?

Because ain't no fucking way in hell that the same Valentina who took Holm, Joanna and Nunes to school at stand-up is going to be losing against these caliber of fighters now

Grasso ain't that good, something was wrong with Valentina

What do you guys think?

I just think she made a mistake throwing that spinning kick, and Grasso was lightning fast to jump on her back and get the RNC.
- Getting caught can happen to anyone.

Spinning shit always carries a bit of risk when you throw it.

 

[Mike]

She's declining. After her last fight, I figured her time as champ was almost over. Just didn't think Grasso would be the one to get it done. She's hitting her mid 30's, which is definitely past your athletic prime.

 

[jeff7b9]

Val isn't used to being hit clean and panicked

She had her Chris Weidman "spinning shit" moment.

Humans do not make the best decisions when they are tired, undress stress, elevated cortisol levels, dehydrated, or dazed.

Val has pretty much fought the same for years now. Striking, usually counter striking + offensive wrestling which is usually of the meat head, physically imposing, bully, top control variety.

Up until her last few fights, it worked well, and for the most part it still works, but,
particularly when faced with younger faster fighters, she can't just rely on her skill gap to coast to easy wins anymore.

I think Val has a decent chance to use this as motivation, come in focused and prepared and avenge the loss, but the clock is ticking for her.


Bonus fact: Val would have been the first champ to fill in all 8 slots on her new model UFC belt. I heard thay the first 7 get filled with rubies and the 8th gets filled with a diamond.

It is going to be a long time before we see a champ hit 8 consecutive title defenses, most divisions have turned over in the last year. I believe Volk has the longest active title defense streak with 3. And champs rarely fight more than once every 9-12 months these days so it will be tough for anyone to get to 8, imho.

 

[Thawing Mammoth]

Nothing much happened, she's just aging

 

[XDeathClutchX]

A little past prime and other fighters are catching up to her skill level.

 

[Streeter]

Val has a long lay off an Grasso ia best fighter she has fought in 5 years

 

[Redando]

Even her rear naked choke defence declined. She defended them against a much better grappler Santos.
Now she couldn’t defend.

 

[BangBang]

She's not really evolved. She hasn't needed to. The competition catches up eventually. Maybe in the rematch she will prove me wrong but she can't fight Jessica Eye every fight.

Despite all the above she still is a fucking legend!

 

[drbolony]

Tape

She has hours and hours of tape on her

Her opponents have studied her every move and now have figured out how to exploit her weaknesses

Both Santos and Grasso found weaknesses in her style and created a game plan around those weaknesses

——

Grasso knew to be ready for the crucifix. Grasso knew to be ready for the spin. Grasso knew southpaw would limit her kicks. Grasso was ready to defend against her clinch takedowns

The only thing that Valentina did that was effective against Grasso was shoot double legs but that was because Valentina has never done that in any of other fights so Grasso wasn’t ready for it.

Valentina needs to change her whole game because all the girls are ready for everything she does

This, she got beat everywhere. It was probably a combination of factors (age, knee surgery, time in the cage) but the biggest factor had to be this if Alexa turned her into a wrestler.

Her whole game was dissected and Alexa made adjustments to everything. @Geniusss Your OP makes it sound like Valentina only aged out, but Grasso's boxing was tight enough to make Valentina start grappling. Then when she went to her head and arm throws, Grasso started to get into advantageous positions with just technique. Next she tried to double leg to end up on top and Alexa adjusted by lowering her level, and she started stuffing everything. Finally when Valentina was desperate (from getting out smarted) she went for her patented spinning back kick and paid for it, because apparently that's the gift wrapped opportunity Alexa had been drilling.

Shev was amazing, and I was a huge fan until she started picking fights and talking down to fighters, but her arrogance caught up to her and she paid for it. I didn't expect it to be this fight either, not even Santos (I wanted her to put a stamp on that I thought she could), but most likely Blanchfield. In the end it was Alexa with a perfectly executed game plan and the heart to pull it off. Viva México perros!!! 2 campeónes del mundo y un interino. Chingue su madre, 3 campeones perros!!! Con técnica y huevos!