Fiorot ripped off six wins over the next two years, including a victory over Rose Namajunas that most presumed would grant her a title shot. However, Alexa Grasso would submit Shevchenko two weeks later, kicking off a trilogy stretched across 18 months. To Fiorot’s credit, she didn’t sit and wait for things to play out. Instead, she cemented herself as the No. 1 contender with a main event victory over Erin Blanchfield in March 2024. Fourteen months later, she finally duked it out with Shevchenko with UFC gold on the line at UFC 315.
Saturday’s Full Fight Card Preview
Things didn’t go as planned, though. Shevchenko got out ahead early, and while Fiorot put together a gritty bid for the belt, she fell to the champion on all three scorecards. It was the first loss in the Octagon for Fiorot as well as her first letdown since her professional debut in June 2018. Afterward, Fiorot said she lost motivation to train, an understandable reaction to seeing years of work and sacrifice result in the belt wrapped around somebody else’s waist. Five months removed from that bout, Fiorot views that experience fondly as she heads into a bout with Jasmine Jasudavicius at UFC Fight Night: de Ridder vs Allen.
“(It) changed everything,” Fiorot told UFC.com. “To be honest, I think losing this fight was good for me. I can do new things. I can go outside. Perhaps, if I won that fight, I don’t go to Canada to train and meet new people and new sparring partners. Definitely, we have Manon 2.0 because of my loss.”
