Joanne Calderwood Says Title Bout Against Valentina Shevchenko Being Pushed Back
However, it appears that the title bout won’t take place as scheduled, because Calderwood says the UFC 251 title fight has been pushed back.
“We got word last week that it’s going to get pushed back,” Calderwood said on the Eurobash podcast (via Peter Carroll of MMA Fighting). “Not because of this whole thing, but something on her end. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to say that, but we know for sure that it’s not going to be on June 6. I don’t know, I’m not sure what happened or what’s what, but it’s been pushed back. It could be a blessing in disguise.”
There has been no comment yet from Shevchenko or the UFC as to the status of the women’s flyweight title bout scheduled for UFC 251.
Calderwood does realize that not having the title bout against Shevchenko at UFC 251 may have its own set of advantages.
“We were planning to go two weeks before and I think it’s 24 hours flying time, so you’re talking two days of travel, but I love Australia so I wasn’t going to complain about that,” she said. “It’s a great country and I know that there are a lot of U.K. and Scottish people over there, so I’m just hoping now it will be in the U.S. and it will be closer for everyone to meet in the middle.”
UFC 251 takes place on Saturday, June 6 from the Perth Arena in Perth, Australia with no main event announced at this time. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
