Antonina Shevchenko on the difference in training as she and Valentina fight on same UFC card

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The Shevchenko sisters, Valentina and Antonina, will fight on the same event at UFC 255

History will be made at UFC 255 as for the first time two sisters, Valentina and Antonina Shevchenko, would be fighting on the same card.

Valentina and Antonina have fought on separate cards in the past and one sister has supported the other, but this is going to be a different event.

Valentina Shevchenko is the UFC Women's Flyweight champion
Valentina Shevchenko celebrates her win over Julianna Pena in the women’s Bantamweight division (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

Antonina takes on rising Brazilian star Ariane Lipski while Valentina will defend her Flyweight title against Jennifer Maia.

Prior to the fight, the pair were speaking to the UFC about how their training camps were different. While Valentina and Antonina confirmed that the pair were focused on their fights and tried to help each other, there was one thing that wasn’t the same.

Antonina opened up on how the diet of both sisters was different during this and Valentina had an advantage regarding the weight cut:

“It is perfect. I like to have same training camp as my sister because everybody is concentrating and focused on the fight. She is on her fight, I am on my fight but atmosphere at home is just the same.

“Diet is a little bit different because Valentina almost doesn’t cut weight so she could eat chocolate and everything, I could not.

“But that was the one thing that was different between us.”

Event day will be different

The champion also brought up the changes when it came to the event date. Normally, Valentina would be there at the show right from Antonina’s fight and vice-versa but that was not going to be the case this time.

It could be a safety measure from the UFC to ensure too many people are not in the stadium. Valentina confirmed that she would be in the hotel and would only come right before her fight.

Antonina Shevchenko is the older sister of Valentina
Katlyn Chookagian attempts to secure a rear choke submission against Antonina Shevchenko (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

The corners for both sisters would also be the same and they would travel with Antonina before returning and then accompanying Valentina to the location.

Antonina also spoke about emotions and claimed that she could be emotional after her fight was done. However, Valentina would not have time for emotions, according to Antonina, as her fight would be much later and she needed to be focused on her opponent.

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