CHICAGO, IL - JULY 23: Valentina Shevchenko of Kyrgyzstan celebrates after defeating Holly Holm by unanimous decision in their women's bantamweight bout during the UFC Fight Night event at the United Center on July 23, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

Valentina Shevchenko is the latest fighter to sign a new deal with the UFC. This new deal is a seven-fight extension to her contract.

After the news of welterweight contender Rory MacDonald leaving the UFC for Bellator, it seems that the UFC plans to hold on to as many of the other big name fighters that they can. Earlier in the week news broke that Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone has signed a new deal with the UFC, now another fighter has begun to strike a new deal with the UFC — women’s bantamweight contender Valentina Shevchenko (13-1). The news broke Friday afternoon via MMAFighting that the Russian fighting phenom has signed a seven fight extension to her contract. Shevchenko was a former multi-time kickboxing champion before coming to the UFC.

Shevchenko is most recently coming off of the biggest win of her career, winning a thrilling fight against the former bantamweight champion Holly Holm at UFC on Fox 20 in Chicago, IL on July 23. She has had three fights since coming to the UFC in December of 2015, her only loss came from the current champion Amanda Nunes in March.

Shevchenko is a decorated Muay Thai fighter, she began training at the age of 12 in her hometown of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Shevchenko is in the discussion for a possible shot at the title. She lost her match up with Nunes via unanimous decision at UFC 196, but showed much improvement in the following bout with Holm. She has been vocal on her Twitter account calling for a rematch with Nunes. Shevchenko is one of the best strikers in the bantamweight division, if not the entire UFC.

The UFC women’s bantamweight division has many talented ladies that are battling for the top spot and a shot at Nunes, one of those ladies being Juliana Pena. Perhaps the UFC will be looking to match these two ladies against each other as a title eliminator. Neither has a fight lined up at this point.