100% Re-Distribution Game, and also available as Pay Plays on steemsports.com

SteemSports presents: Valentina 'The Bullet' Shevchenko vs Juliana 'The Venezuelan Vixen' Peña

The Russian Bullet takes on the Venezuelan Vixen in a match-up where both will vie for a championship title shot!

Fighter Profile: Valentina "The Bullet" Shevchenko

Valentina 'The Bullet' Shevchenko is the half Peruvian, half Russian muay thai stylist fighting out of the 'Tiger Muay Thai' striking camp. She has claimed title of master of sport in over 5 combat entities (including judo, kickboxing, muay thai). In her most recent win, she dominated the former champion and renowned boxing queen Holly Holm everywhere the fight went. Valentina is arguably the most acclaimed and skilled striking technician in all of women's mixed martial arts, her kicks and punches are lightning and can be delivered from all angles.

She is a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and she is able to seamlessly throw high kicks and low from multiple combat sports she has mastered. She is a master at closing distance and keeping range, she has also mastered the sport of pure boxing and is able to throw tremendous combinations for the duration of all her fights. Her strong base and clinch game thwarts most grappling exchanges, and forces her opponents to stand with her. Valentina is the blueprint for all future women mixed martial artists, she is a prototype of perfection...and she keeps evolving.

Fighter Profile: Julianna "The Venezuelan Vixen" Pena

Juliana 'The Venezuelan Vixen' Peña is the gritty and powerful grappler fighting out of 'Sikjitsu' fight camp, home to top tier lightweight Michael Chiesa and former bantamweight heavy hitter Sam Sicilia. Her youth and raw aggression work in unison as she is able drag girls down to the mat where she is an expert at passing guard. If she attains mount from top position, you can be assured the fight will not last much longer. She has powerful ground and pound and a reliable folk wrestling background, her former coach and team mate Meisha Tate was a heavy influence on her style.

Peña has great cardiovascular conditioning, and although a slow starter, once she finds her rhythm it is hard to stop the freight train momentum she accrues. One of Peña's greatest strengths is keeping top position over opponents on the ground, she showed amazing composure and fight IQ in her last win against former contender Cat Zingano where top pressure won her that fight. Vixen is a rhythmic fighter who garners tremendous momentum as the fight goes on; she truly gets stronger with each minute that passes in fight. Her durability, strength and mindset are as powerful as they come in women's sports, it will take a marvelous performance to put this Vixen down.

The Matchup & Prediction

This is as confounding a matchup as you can get; a very even fight with very big implications for both fighters. On paper we have two ladies who have taken out highly ranked contenders in their division, and have never been dominated in any facet. We have seen both ladies start very slow in their fights, and lack of engagement may play a big part in this battle. Vixen is incredibly durable, and has crude yet powerful boxing that allows her to close distance well. Bullet will not fall into any traps on the feet Julianna will plant, but will she be able to keep her dog like wrestling at bay for a full five rounds? Neither girl has any quit, and these are two of the most dynamic and durable fighters on the women's bantamweight roster.

The confusion of this matchup comes with the clash of styles: a grappler who seeks the finish at every unraveling of the fight, and a striker who kills with volume and and frustrating the opponent with confusing levels and ranges. This war will be won by the woman who can demotivate and frustrate the enemy, an aspect of fighting both women employ quite well. Do not be surprised if we see a draw here, everything on paper points to that outcome...but I digress.

Prediction: Valentina Shevchenko by Split Decision

Presented & Graphics by: @cryptoiskey

Writer: @brandonk

Fists Fly

January 28th, 8PM/5PM ETPT

January 29th, 1AM UTC

HOW TO PLAY

• To enter the FREE PLAY, comment below the image of your chosen outcome with the NAME of the fighter, for example "Julianna".

• Entry cut-off time is the earlier of the post payout or the start of the event.

• Once the post has paid out and the results are known; the presenter will attend to the payouts manually until such time as we have developed an app to handle this automatically.

• The SP pool will be split between the winners who correctly guessed the outcome.

• More than one entry per account/per person will be disqualified. Repeat offense could result in blacklisting for future games.

STAKE POOL

• All liquid rewards will be distributed to Writers (40%) and Presenters (60%)

• 100% of the Steem Power (SP) pool will distributed to winners equally, no rewards will be retained by the @steemsports account.

• To facilitate the distribution of time-locked SP, we will use available liquid Steem to initiate the SP distribution and “top-up” via power-down.

Disclaimer: This is a beta experimental game type, subject to amendment as necessary

Re-Distribution Game: Valentina Shevchenko vs Juliana Pena