It may have looked like an easy night of work for Valentina Shevchenko after the first round of her women's flyweight title defense against Manon Fiorot on Saturday in the co-main event of UFC 315 at the Bell Center in Montreal.
It turned out to be one of the toughest battles of her life.
But Shevchenko became just the fifth fighter in UFC history to win at least 10 championship bouts when she defeat Fiorot by scores of 48-47 on all judges cards.
The statistics are indicative of how close the fight was. Shevchenko landed 72 of 149 significant strikes, while Fiorot was 71 of 160. Shevchenko was 2 of 9 in takedowns and Fiorot was 1 of 12.
There was little between them, though Shevchenko landed the more telling blows. She bloodied Fiorot's nose in the first and controlled her on the ground for about 90 seconds. She dropped Fiorot at the end of the fourth, but the bell sounded and appeared to save Fiorot.
"I was expecting a very hard fight," Shevchenko said. "Manon, she's a very tough opponent, a good striker."
Fiorot rallied hard in the second and evened the fight, using good work in the clinch. From that point on, it was a hard fought battle with much of it against the cage. Fiorot was racking up clinch control time, but she wasn't doing a lot with it and that cost her in the end.