Tiger Muay Thai has always been popular with female fighters. Valentina Shevchenko used the Phuket camp as a base to prepare for her rematch with Alex Grasso at UFC Fight Night 227 this weekend.
She is not the only female fighter currently based at Tiger Muay Thai. Italian Muay Thai fighter Lena Nocker took to Instagram to introduce herself and three team mates as,
“the girls of the tiger cave.”
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Titles and tournaments
Lena Nocker was in action at ONE Friday Fights 19 where she was stopped by Natalia Diachkova. The Italian has also appeared on Super Champ, LWC and Thai fight and won a four woman tournament in Koh Phangan last year.
Standing in the middle is Milana Bjelogrlic who has a background in bikini body building. She was handed an incredibly tough matchup at ONE Friday Fights 18 and caused Smilla Sundell plenty of problems despite dropping a decision to the promotion’s reigning strawweight Muay Thai champion.
Standing on the right is Chellina Chirino who is the Enfusion bantamweight champion. Seated at the front is Sira Patsorn, an online influencer who appears to be a long time guest at Tiger Muay Thai.
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Male partners
Valentina Shevchenko recently shared a video of her training camp in Phuket. Despite the proliferation of female fighters at Tiger Muay Thai she prefers to spar with men and her long term coach and brother in law Pavel Fedotov explained why,
“There are far more male MMA fighters than female ones (and) as a rule men have more power.”
Nocker and Milana Bjelogrlic look like the tallest in the group. The former fights at strawweight while the latter’s last fight was set at a catchweight of 128lbs (with hydration checks) so they are all significantly smaller than the current UFC bantamweight champion.
In 2010 Shevchenko was fighting regularly in Phuket. Back then she was relatively unknown outside of Muay Thai circles but the 35 year old is now one of the most recognizable female fighters on the planet.
There is clearly a new generation of female fighters coming through at Tiger Muay Thai. It will be interesting to see whether any of them are capable of emulating Shevchenko who has enjoyed incredible success in multiple sports and will be looking to recapture her UFC bantamweight title this weekend.
