Impact You're going to have to search long and hard to find a title fight that went the distance that was less competitive than this one. Making her flyweight debut after relinquishing her title at strawweight following a dominant run, Zhang was physically dominated from start to finish. She simply had zero answers for the brute force and overwhelming strength of the champion. Zhang gave up five takedowns on six attempts, good for 13:24 worth of control time. It's difficult to remember even one damaging strike landed of her 32 significant ones that connected. It wasn't for a lack of talent for Zhang, it was simply a lack of the requisite size and strength to compete at this division. What we saw tonight makes you think she would struggle against top contenders in the division like Erin Blanchfield and Manon Fiorot, let alone a dominant champion like Shevchenko. Zhang was asked post-fight what her future plans are and said she had to think about it. A return to 115 pounds is by far the most likely result at age 36.
NOVEMBER 16 • ROTOWIRE
