After another utterly dominant defense of her UFC women’s flyweight championship against Lauren Murphy this past Saturday night at UFC 266, Valentina Shevchenko reaffirmed her position as one of the best fighters in the sport. She did it with an easy aplomb, dummying and nullifying Murphy in every way en route to a perfunctory fourth-round stoppage. Her wholesale technical and athletic domination was another demonstration that she isn’t just one of MMA’s most complete fighters, but the reaction to her win was a reminder that she is what I like to call “complete MMA.”
When you see phrases like “100 percent MMA,” “totally MMA,” or “complete MMA” used online, it’s usually to describe the peculiarities and bizarre “otherness” of an individual or event, for better or for worse.