There’s been a lot of debate over the past few days following Mario Yamasaki allowing Priscila Cachoeira to continue fighting despite being bludgeoned by Valentina Shevchenko by a completely lopsided margin in their matchup this past weekend in Brazil.
When the fight was mercifully stopped in the second round due to a rear naked choke, Shevchenko had out landed Cachoeira by an astonishing 230 to 3 margin in strikes.
Afterwards, UFC president Dana White unleashed on Yamasaki saying that he hopes the referee will never serve as an official inside the Octagon again.
For her part, Shevchenko admits she hasn’t gone back to watch the fight again since winning on Saturday night but she can’t really remark whether or not the referee did his job by allowing the matchup to continue.
The way Shevchenko sees it, her job is to continue pouring on the punishment until the referee tells her to stop and that’s the way she approaches every single fight she takes in the UFC.
“During the fight I was not surprised at nothing because my focus and my mind was totally focused to finish the fight. It doesn’t matter how. I had to finish the fight,” Shevchenko told MMAWeekly on Tuesday. “While I was not bothered by the referee or told that my opponent refused to fight, I will not stop.
“This was my focus during the fight. Because I will not stop until I will stop.”
Shevchenko goes onto explain that in the past she’s seen some fighters motion to the referee to stop the contest and it can actually backfire on them by allowing an opponent a brief moment to recover.
That’s why her philosophy is to keep pounding away until the referee forces her to stop that way she knows the fight is officially finished.
“This is more important for me because sometimes the fighters will say ‘why is the fight not being stopped?’ or something like this and sometimes they receive some kind of punch. That’s why I was not thinking about this at all. I was doing my job to finish the fight as soon as I can,” Shevchenko stated.
Of course, Shevchenko knew that she was winning the fight rather handily just judging by the amount of damage that Cachoeira was wearing on her face after eating several hard shots on the ground.
In fact, Shevchenko knew from one of the very first exchanges of the fight that she was already beginning to break Cachoeira and from there it was only a matter of time until she put her away.
“From the first time that I landed to Priscila, I felt that it was a good punch and she was losing herself a little bit,” Shevchenko said. “From this moment, I knew that I had to finish it. I went without thought and I was increasing the rhythm of the fight and this is only what I was thinking about.
“Finish it. No matter how, no matter what.”
