As three gunmen stormed a local restaurant in Lima, Peru, in late May and closed in on Valentina Shevchenko and her longtime coach Pavel Fedotov, the UFC bantamweight contender wasn’t thinking of her life being in danger. She was afraid she was going to miss practice.
“My first reaction was, ‘Why now?’” Shevchenko said. “This cannot be happening now. I need to go to training tomorrow for the fight. I have had a few encounters before where someone tried — unsuccessfully — to snatch a bag, but never one where a gun was put on me.”
Fedotov, who was armed, quickly sprung into action, opening fire and killing one of the assailants. In the firefight, the coach was hit, but he has recovered in time to be in Shevchenko’s corner for her UFC on FOX main event against Holly Holm. But for a few harrowing moments, it could have all been lost. That’s something Shevchenko has never lost sight of.
“I have always tried to live life to the fullest and never took anything for granted,” she said. “Our time here on this earth is really short.”
Robbery attempts and gunfights aren’t needed to remind anyone of that, but it never hurts to get a little jolt to remember to live life to its fullest, because it can be gone in a second. Shevchecnko, 28, took these notes to heart, and while the incident shook up the early part of her training camp, she got her bearings back quickly and was firing on all cylinders once setting foot in the United States to finish her prep work for the biggest fight of her career.
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