A little more than three months ago, Katlyn Chookagian had a chance to fulfill a dream. Unfortunately, Valentina Shevchenko stood firmly in her path.
“It was definitely disappointing,” Chookagian told MMA Junkie. “You work your whole life for that moment, and it doesn’t go your way. It definitely sucks.”
Chookagian faced the reigning UFC women’s flyweight champion at February’s UFC 247. Shevchenko was in peak form, and she notched a third-round TKO for the third consecutive defense of her title.
For Chookagian, the result was incredibly disappointing.
“That’s all I wanted for my whole life, was to win that fight, and it didn’t go my way,” Chookagian said.
Immediately after the result, she was surrounded by friends and family who helped ease her pain in the moment. That temporary assistance lasted only so long.
“Everyone was there for me, and they were all happy,” Chookagian said. “When everyone left and it was just me and my husband, I let out the tears and stuff.”
But as the sun rose the following morning, Chookagian realized her world was still intact. Sure, she didn’t have the belt wrapped around her waist, but that didn’t mean anything else in her life had changed.
“The next day, I was like, ‘Well, life goes on. What are you going to do?’” Chookagian remembered. “I like to think that I’m a pretty positive person. I can sit around and cry about it, but that’s not going to change the fact that the fight is what it is, and you’ve got to move on – even though martial arts has been my entire life and everything that I’ve obsessed over every second of every day.
“At the end of the day, fighting is only one part of me, and I’m really happy in my life, and there’s more to life than just fighting. I can confidently say that and know that doesn’t take away from how I feel about training and fighting and how much it means to me. It can mean the world to you, but there also is more to life.”
Chookagian, 31, says that philosophy isn’t one she might have embraced earlier in her career, but through time in the sport and an ongoing maturation, she’s realized that focusing on negatives simply won’t help her in any aspect of her life – inside the cage or out.
But she also wants to make it perfectly clear that the acceptance of a setback doesn’t mean she’s embracing her current position as her ceiling. To that end, Chookagian said it didn’t take her long to start pushing UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard to get her back in the octagon.
“I waited like a week, and then I was texting Mick: ‘I want to fight. Even if you need a last-minute replacement for 135, I’ll take the fight,’” Chookagian said. “I just wanted to get back in there. I’ve got a lot of good momentum in my training that I didn’t necessarily get to show in my last fight, but that doesn’t take away all the new stuff that I’ve been working on the past six months to a year.
“I was like, ‘All right, the best way to get over a loss is to get a win,’ so I just wanted to get back in there.”
Chookagian (13-3 MMA, 6-3 UFC) gets her chance Saturday when she takes on Antonina Shevchenko (8-1 MMA, 2-1 UFC) at UFC on ESPN. The event airs on ESPN and streams on ESPN+ from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
It’s a bit of an odd choice of opponent for Chookagian, booked against the sister of the woman who beat her last time out. However, Chookagian said she didn’t take as much notice of the connection as it seems has been the case with the rest of the MMA world.
“To me, it’s just another fighter,” Chookagian said. “She’s in the division, and everyone in the division is on my radar because they’re a potential opponent. I was just kind of lucky that I was able to get a fight in this situation.”
“This situation,” of course, is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a considerable impact on all aspects of global life. Chookagian said she accepted the fight before she really figured out how she was going to train for it, but never once hesitated.
“I was just kind of like, ‘It will all work out,’” Chookagian said. “Worst-case scenario, I have a heavy bag and an Airdyne bike in my garage. Worse comes to worst, I’ll just get my cardio up and do a lot of shadowboxing, and we’ll figure it out as we go.”
In the end, Chookagian was able to put together a bit of a training camp with teammates Claudia Gadelha and Sijara Eubanks, who each picked up victories during the UFC’s recent three-event stretch in Florida.
Now it’s Chookagian’s turn, and she’s excited to step back into the cage with a brand new mentality – one that came at the expense of her unfulfilled dream, but one she believes will still allow her to succeed.
“For me, I’m really excited about this fight because for the first time in a while, there’s no pressure,” Chookagian said. “My last couple fights before my title fight, everyone was like, ‘If you win, are you going to fight for the title?’ As much as you say you’re just focusing on that fight, looking back on it now, I feel like I kind of had the attitude in my last couple fights where I wasn’t necessarily fighting to win, but just fighting not to lose. I was like, ‘Well if I lose, I’ve got to do two or three more fights before I get a title shot.’ Every day is just based on fighting for the title. Now, who knows what will happen?
“I’m honestly just focused on this fight, and not holding back. I feel like in all my fights, I have so many abilities that I haven’t gotten to show yet because I’ve been a little more reserved and played it a little too safe. There’s just less pressure, and I feel like I can go in there and have fun and work on what I’ve been working on for the last few camps.”
Katlyn Chookagian admits title loss 'definitely sucks,' but allowed herself to realize life moves on
