{"id":437597,"date":"2026-01-26T01:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/437597\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T01:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:28:07","slug":"natalia-silva-ufc-promised-title-shot-with-win-over-rose-namajunas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/437597\/","title":{"rendered":"Natalia Silva: UFC promised title shot with win over Rose Namajunas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LAS VEGAS \u2013 It looks like <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/valentina-shevchenko\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Valentina Shevchenko;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Valentina Shevchenko<\/a> has her next title challenger, and her name is Natalia Silva.<\/p>\n<p>Silva (20-5-1 MMA, 8-0 UFC), an unbeaten contender in the women&#8217;s flyweight division, picked up a <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/ufc-324-results-natalia-silva-034726655.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:unanimous decision victory;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">unanimous decision victory<\/a> over former strawweight champion <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/rose-namajunas\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Rose Namajunas;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Rose Namajunas<\/a> (14-8 MMA, 12-7 UFC) on the main card of Saturday&#8217;s UFC 324. Silva took the fight on short notice, replacing Alexa Grasso.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>According to the Brazilian, part of the incentive on taking the bout was a title shot against Shevchenko.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what should happen, and that&#8217;s what the UFC told me \u2013\u00a0that I was going to get a title fight,&#8221; Silva said through a translator at her UFC 324 post-fight news conference. &#8220;Listen: I accepted the fight when the UFC came calling. I don&#8217;t know what happened to Alexa. I understand she was injured and couldn&#8217;t be here, and (me fighting) was to save the event.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When the UFC called me and said, &#8216;This is what you&#8217;re going to do,&#8217; I didn&#8217;t have to accept this fight. I accepted this fight on short notice. There wasn&#8217;t much time to prepare for it. I accepted the fight, I did what I needed to do, and I expect and trusted the UFC \u2013\u00a0and I hope they follow on that promise because I should be the next one to fight for the title. That&#8217;s the fight I expect to get next.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Shevchenko has yet to be booked for her next title defense. She last fought in November, when she defended her belt against <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/fighters\/zhang-weili\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Zhang Weili;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Zhang Weili<\/a>, who had vacated her strawweight belt to try to become a two-division champion at 125 pounds.<\/p>\n<p>Silva would like to get her shot at gold at the UFC&#8217;s scheduled event at The White House. The event is supposed to take place on June 14, the birthday of U.S. president Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My birthday is coming up. It&#8217;s on Feb. 3,&#8221; Silva said. &#8220;That would be an amazing gift. I think Dana should give to me as a gift because think about it: I accepted this fight on short notice, high risk. I did what I needed to do. It would be a tremendous birthday gift to get the call to fight in the White House against Valentina.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2026\/01\/25\/ufc-324-natalia-silva-promised-flyweight-title-shot-vs-valentina-shevchenko-after-rose-namajunas-win\/88353205007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Natalia Silva: UFC promised title shot with win over Rose Namajunas;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Natalia Silva: UFC promised title shot with win over Rose Namajunas<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2013 It looks like Valentina Shevchenko has her next title challenger, and her name is Natalia&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[56109,64,63,786,785,56800,85,787,11158],"class_list":{"0":"post-437597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-alexa-grasso","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-rose-namajunas","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-ufc","16":"tag-valentina-shevchenko"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}