LAS VEGAS — Amanda Nunes defeated Valentina Shevchenko by unanimous decision in a three-round fight last year, but Saturday night’s rematch is the UFC 213 main event, so it’s scheduled to go five rounds.
Kenny Florian, a Bostonian UFC fighter-turned-FOX analyst, is intrigued by how that might affect the result at T-Mobile Arena.
“For this fight, it being five rounds, it being an Amanda Nunes that had beaten Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey, I just think she’s a different fighter now,” Florian told NESN.com’s Rachel Holt on Wednesday after a “UFC Tonight” taping at the Park Theater. “Valentina Shevchenko, I think she was gaining a lot of momentum in her first fight against Amanda Nunes, and it had people thinking if that was a five-round fight, Shevchenko might have won. Now we do finally get a five-round fight, and we’ll see who wins.”
Shevchenko said at Wednesday’s open workout that the five-round distance “will be good for me,” although she admitted she’d try for the quick finish in her quest for the UFC bantamweight belt. Just three days before Shevchenko, Nunes and the entire UFC world find out.
Click to watch the full Kenny Florian interview with NESN >>
Thumbnail photo by Justin Hathaway/NESN
