Valentina Shevchenko was supposed to just be happy to be there.
Saturday night was supposed to be Holly Holm's night.
Instead, Shevchenko, a Lima, Peru, native by way of Kyrgyzstan, put her stamp on the UFC women's bantamweight division with a one-sided upset of former champion Holm.
The judges' scores at Chicago's United Center were 49-46 across the board for a unanimous decision.
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Holm (10-2) took the first round, using her boxing skills to score the fight's only knockdown. But Shevchenko, a decorated kickboxer, took over from there, using a variety of strikes to keep Holm off-balance. After an accidental headbutt by Shevchenko led to a one-sided third round, Holm never seemed in the fight.
Shevchenko has won six of her past seven fights, with her only loss in that span to current champion Amanda Nunes.
"I prepared for this fight very very hard," Shevchenko said. "I showed very much heart. I'm very excited for this fight, it's very important for my career. My strategy was do everything I know all my skills, all my martial arts."
Holm, of Albuquerque, N.M., made no excuses after her second consecutive loss.
"We train for everything, I was taught all the right things," Holm said. "I have no excuses for my performance tonight."
Edson Barboza of West Palm Bech, Fla., made a statement in the lightweight division with a brutally efficient victory over former Strikeforce and WEC champion Gilbert Melendez (22-6) of San Francisco.
Barboza (18-4) used wicked kicks to the body and particularly to Melendez's lead left leg to methodically slow him down, and shut down most of Melendez's attempts at offense as he cruised to a unanimous decision victory. The judges' scores were a pair of 30-27s and a 29-28 in favor of Barboza.
After the fight, Barboza, who beat former champion Anthony Pettis in his previous bout, called out a host of top contenders.
"I think I'm very close to a title shot," Barboza said. "I'll keep moving forward, Khabib (Nurmagomedov), (Tony) Ferguson, Rafael (dos Anjos), one of those guys next. I'm ready to go fight rounds."
Melendez, who was coming off a PED-relate suspension, lost for the fourth time in his past five matchups.
Francis Ngannou (7-0) continues his march up the heavyweight ranks. The Cameroon native and Paris resident needed just 1 minute, 34 seconds to knock out Bojan Mihajlovic (10-4) of Serbia.
Mihajlovic brought a 10-fight winning streak into his UFC debut, but proved no match for Ngannou. Ngannou dropped him with a body shot and landed several undefended blows to the face before Mihajlovic could cover up. But he couldn't do anything else as he simply rode out the storm until referee Herb Dean waved off the bout.
"I will back up what I say," said Ngannou, who has finishes in all seven of his career fights. "I will be champion, I guarantee I will be champion."
Popular strawweight Felice Herrig (11-6) wasted little time in her first bout in 15 months. Herrig, of nearby Crystal Lake, Ill., dispatched of Hawaii's Kailin Curran (4-3) in less than two minutes. Curran vailantly fought off Herrig's rear-naked choke for as long as she could before finally tapping out at 1:59.
"This feels great, I feel the energy here," Herrig said after her fifth career stoppage victory. "I took a lot of time off, a lot of people didn't get to see, but a lot of people helped me behind the scenes to get my body and my mind back on the right path."
In the featured preliminary bout, Eddie Wineland (22-11) of nearby Chesterton, Ind., thrilled the crowd with a vicious finish of Phoenix's Frankie Saenz (11-4).
Wineland, a former WEC bantamweight champion, dropped Saenz with a brutal counter right hand to the kisser in the third round. A wobbly Saenz got back to his feet, only to be met by a swarming Wineland before the bout was waved off at 1:54.
"Everyone knows I have power in my hand," Wineland said after his 12th career KO/TKO victory. "I'm a 135 pounder with one-punch knockout power."
