Valentina Shevchenko (23-4) failed to reclaim the Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight title in the main event at UFC Noche as her rematch against Alexa Grasso (16-3) ended in a controversial split draw. However, the 10-8 fifth-round scorecard wasn’t the only controversial bit about the highly anticipated rematch that went down on Sept. 16.
During a scramble in the fourth frame, Grasso sprawled out of a takedown attempt by Shevchenko and landed multiple knees to the head while chasing “Bullet.” Shevchenko immediately protested the knees and later claimed the strikes were illegal as one of her hands was on the mat.
When speaking to MMA journalist Ariel Helwani, a Nevada State Athletic Commission Official cleared the air regarding the specifics of the “knees to the head of a grounded opponent” rule. As per the NSAC official, “Bullet” is correct about one hand on the ground being enough to consider the opponent grounded. However, the hand in question should either be flat on the ground or weight-bearing, which wasn’t the case with Shevchenko, as determined by the NSAC.
“I did speak to the Nevada State Athletic Commission and an official there told me that it is one hand, so she’s [Shevchenko] correct about that,” Helwani said in a video on social media. “The hand has to be either flat on the mat or weight bearing. And they also told me that in between rounds, they also checked the replay…They checked it multiple times and they determined that all the knees hit legally because the hand wasn’t flat, and/or weight bearing, and/or even at times on the mat when they were landing. So their determination is, those were not illegal knees.”
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