Antonina Shevchenko announced her retirement on Thursday. The eight-fight UFC veteran and sister of two-time flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko has decided to focus on her pilot career and being a mother.
“I didn’t have the opportunity to leave my gloves in the octagon by tradition, I didn’t think my fight in UFC in 2022 would be the last. “I am leaving my gloves” in this post,” Shevchenko wrote on Instagram.
“30 years in sport, black belt 3rd dan in Taekwondo, 11 World Champion titles in Muay Thai, Kickboxing and MMA. More than 400 fights in amateurs and professionals, Asian and South American Champion, UFC fighter. This is how I finish my career in professional sport.”
Shevchenko will always be a martial artist but is leaving fighting in her past to continue to pursue her career as a pilot.
“Of course, martial arts continue to be big part of my life but in different way,” she wrote. “It’s time to be focused on the next page – my career as a pilot. My heart and my head are completely fulled with airplanes and sky and it’s hard to express how happy I am that aviation has come into my life!
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“A professional fighter lives a full exciting life, filled with hard work, awards, travels, difficulties, victory celebrations. And it is hard to find another path you love that will be same intense and fullness, filled with action, constant learning, hard work and celebration of achievements. Aviation is this treasure for me,” she continued.
Shevchenko gave birth to a son in September 2024 and plans to raise him properly with the hopes he’ll become a fighter and a pilot.
“Now it’s my turn to do all the hard work for my son, to raise him a decent person,” she said. “Of course, I will do everything possible for make him become a professional fighter and a pilot!”
Shevchenko career MMA record will stand at 10-4 with a 4-4 record inside the octagon. She last fought in July 2022, defeating Cortney Casey by split decision.
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