Valentina Shevchenko can’t relate to Cris Cyborg’s situation: ‘[Dana White] is a good person’

UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko cannot relate to the situation that has unraveled between Cris Cyborg and Dana White in the last week.

Cyborg’s release from the UFC was confirmed last week following her unanimous decision win over Felicia Spencer at UFC 240. The Brazilian released a video—which was later removed—of an interaction with the UFC president following the win, which she later admitted carried some misquotes from White in the subtitles, due to an error made by her production team. White later claimed that misquoting him in the video was “one of the dirtiest things” you can do.

With her upcoming title defense against Liz Carmouche at UFC Uruguay firmly in her crosshairs, Shevchenko admitted that she has not been following the situation closely, but was adamant that White and the UFC have always treated her very well.

“With the situation she had with Dana White recently, I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to what happened between them,” Shevchenko told MMA Fighting.

“But I can say that from what I know of Dana White, he’s a very good person; he’s a very polite and kind person. Since very early on, he’s always been worried about the fighters. If he says, ‘I will take care of you’, you can be sure he will take care of you because he’s trying to make life for the fighters in the UFC good. [He wants UFC fighters] to have everything because UFC is the biggest organization of mixed-martial arts in the world. That’s not just him, that’s everyone that’s involved in the UFC; their treatment of fighters is unique—I haven’t received this [treatment] in any other organization.”

Cyborg might be one of the biggest names in the history of women’s mixed martial arts, but “Bullet” insisted that she never saw a fight between them taking place, not only because of their differing weight classes, but because their close of relationship as training partners.

“I never was thinking about [fighting Cyborg] because we’re in two totally different weight classes. We’ve commonly trained together, I’ve always considered her more of sparring partner and a friend. It’s never been in my mind to make that fight happen.”