Valentina Shevchenko didn’t just randomly decide to walk away from the UFC flyweight title; there’s actually a pretty serious reason behind it. The former women’s flyweight champ was supposed to put her belt on the line against Natalia Silva at UFC 332 on October 3, but a nasty injury setback forced her out of the fight and ultimately led to her vacating the title.

Now, Shevchenko’s longtime coach, Pavel Fedotov, has finally shed some light on what forced her to make the tough decision to walk away. Turns out, it’s not just one issue: ‘Bullet’ is dealing with ligament injuries affecting both her shoulder and back, and the recovery is expected to take several months.

“We were supposed to fight on October 3 against Natalia Silva,” Fedotov told Telegram Ushatayka. “But due to an injury to the ligaments in the shoulder and back, we decided not to push things and postpone the fight.

“Given that the recovery will take a long time, we’ve made the decision to temporarily vacate the belt, and once she recovers, she will fight for it again.”

That update makes Valentina Shevchenko’s decision to give up her belt a whole lot easier to understand. At first, the UFC only said she was dealing with an “undisclosed” injury when it announced that Natalia Silva would instead face Wang Cong for the vacant title.

And as expected, that raised plenty of eyebrows. ‘Bullet’ has defended the 125-pound belt nine times across her two championship runs, so seeing the UFC move on without one of the division’s biggest names naturally had fans wondering what was really going on behind the scenes.

According to Pavel Fedetov, though, the 38-year-old didn’t give up the belt because she wanted to; the timeline simply didn’t make sense. With her recovery expected to take months, the UFC couldn’t afford to keep the flyweight division frozen.

The coach believes ‘Bullet’ could be out for around eight months before she’s ready to step back into the Octagon. So, Natalia Silva and Wang Cong will now fight for the vacant title. Valentina Shevchenko, meanwhile, has no choice but to hit the reset button and focus on getting healthy.

And the timing really stings. After losing her title to Alexa Grasso in 2023, ‘Bullet’ fought her way back and reclaimed the belt in their 2024 rematch. She then defended it against Manon Fiorot, looking every bit like the division’s top dog again.

Her most recent fight came at Madison Square Garden in November 2025, where she beat Zhang Weili by decision. She’d finally made it back to the top, and now, just months later, she’ll have to sit on the sidelines and watch two other fighters battle for the title she once held.

For Valentina Shevchenko, it’s a seriously frustrating way for another championship run to hit pause.

Valentina Shevchenko has bounced back from long layoffs before

An eight-month layoff is no joke, especially for someone as active and dominant as Valentina Shevchenko. But surprisingly, this still wouldn’t come close to being the longest break of her MMA career.

That record goes all the way back to the early days of the 38-year-old’s career. ‘Bullet’ suffered her first professional MMA loss to Liz Carmouche in September 2010, and what followed was a seriously long hiatus where she didn’t return to MMA for more than three years.

During that three-plus-year break, Valentina Shevchenko didn’t exactly sit around doing nothing. She went all-in on her kickboxing and Muay Thai career before eventually making her MMA comeback against Priscilla Orellana at Fusion FC 5 in 2013.

And this isn’t even the first time a major injury has kept ‘Bullet’ on the shelf for a while. Before giving up the title, ‘Bullet’ had already spent 294 days out of action because of injuries, putting her third among the reigning champions with some of the longest stretches on the sidelines, only one-upped by Kayla Harrison and Tom Aspinall‘s 455 days and 315 days, respectively.

That’s also why the UFC’s decision to immediately move toward a vacant-title fight has raised plenty of eyebrows. Even Paulo Costa and Cris Cyborg have both questioned why Shevchenko was stripped while Kayla Harrison was allowed to keep her championship despite dealing with serious neck issues and undergoing neck surgery.

For Shevchenko, though, giving up the belt instead of keeping the entire division waiting could actually work in her favor. Once she’s healthy again, the 38-year-old will have a clean shot at working her way back into title contention without having to deal with the pressure of immediately defending a championship after such a long layoff.

And let’s be real, Valentina Shevchenko has basically been one of the faces of the UFC’s 125-pound division for years. She first captured the flyweight title in 2018 and absolutely ran with it, putting together seven straight successful defenses during her first reign.

After eventually losing the belt to Grasso, ‘Bullet’ fought her way back, reclaimed the championship, and added two more defenses to her resume. So even without the belt around her waist right now, it’s hard to count ‘Bullet’ out. If she can get healthy and make it back to the Octagon, the road to another title shot is likely to be wide open.

Of course, giving up a championship doesn’t exactly come with a guaranteed ticket back to the top. Just ask Jamahal Hill and Jiri Prochazka. Both former light heavyweight champs had to vacate the UFC title because of serious injuries, and neither was able to win it back after returning.

Now, Shevchenko will be hoping she can avoid becoming the next name on that list. At 38, an extended layoff will inevitably bring up retirement talk, but so far, there’s not much about her recent performances to suggest she’s ready to call it quits. ‘Bullet’ still looked like one of the best fighters in the division before this latest setback.

For now, though, it’s all about getting healthy. Once she’s ready to compete again, Valentina Shevchenko plans to return to the 125-pound division she’s ruled for years and chase down the championship she willingly gave up. The belt may be gone for now, but ‘Bullet’ clearly isn’t done hunting it.