Despite being caught in shootout, Valentina Shevchenko never considered pulling out of Holly Holm fight

In preparation for the biggest fight in her career, Valentina Shevchenko was caught in a robbery shootout in Lima, Peru where her long-time coach Pavel Fedotov was shot.

The unfortunate event occurred on May 30, when three robbers walked into a fried chicken restaurant in the Chorrilos district of Lima. Shevchenko and Fedotov were eating at the restaurant at the time the robbery happened. As the robbers were fleeing the scene, Pavel decided to take matters to his own hands, pulling out a firearm he was carrying and opening fire at the robbers, igniting the shootout that got him shot in the abdomen.

Soon after the incident, Fedotov was rushed to the hospital, and even under that circumstance Fedotov wasn't going to allow his pupil to withdraw from her pivotal fight with former UFC woman's bantamweight champion Holly Holm at UFC on Fox 20.

"Even being in the hospital on the next few days, Pavel said, ‘doesn't matter what happens, you should take this fight, and don't think about nothing'," Shevchenko explained on Monday's edition of The MMA Hour. "I didn't consider not one small opportunity to refuse the fight. I was really like mentally that I would continue my preparation.

"I was physically in shock, and I couldn't train for a week because it was a very deep situation for me, but I knew days [later] I would start my preparation. And when I started my preparation, I was totally in this process thinking only about the fight, thinking how to put me in a very good form, sharpen me, and I was thinking only about it. This is how this whole situation was and we went through it."

Apart from telling Shevchenko to continue fighting, Fedotov kept coaching and advising her to the best of his capability. ‘The Bullet' says she has a very special bond with Fedotov, as she's been training under his tutelage since she was five years old.

"He's just feeling now better, but the whole time he was speaking to me and saying what I need to do, how I need to train," Shevchenko said. "Every moment [he] was maybe not physically but spiritually near me, so every moment me feeling this [includence] that he gave me every time."

Despite the traumatic experience and the high crime rate in Lima, Shevchenko is not planning on moving elsewhere.

"I'm living in Lima, Peru already eight years, and it's a very good and beautiful country, very good people, very good nature, it has oceans, mountains, and a lot of very beautiful things that are inside of Peru," Shevchenko said. "And that's why I love that country and doesn't matter what happened because every part of the world has bad people but the good people are every time more than the bad people."

For now, Shevchenko remains focused on her fight with Holm, as she believes it's a big responsibility to headline a UFC event.  ‘The Bullet' also says that her July 23 fight will be an ‘excellent' opportunity for people to see her skills in the octagon.