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LAS VEGAS – UFC women’s flyweight title challenger Valentina Shevchenko still has a hard time believing champ Nicco Montanowill show up for UFC 228.

After all, she’s seen several proposed timelines come and go, and the two have yet to actually step in the cage.

“I hope that Nicco will follow her word and show up in the octagon and fight, because before she’s inside the octagon, I can’t believe she’ll do it,” Shevchenko told reporters today during a media day at the UFC’s Performance Institute in Las Vegas.

UFC 228 takes place Sept. 8 at American Airlines Arena in Dallas. Montano vs. Shevchenko serves as the co-headliner of the event’s pay-per-view main card following prelims on FX and UFC Fight Pass.

The booking follows several months of back and forth between the flyweights. Montano (4-2 MMA, 1-0 UFC) said a long layoff following her win of the inaugural UFC belt at The Ultimate Fighter 26 Finale was the product of a foot injury and a tonsillectomy that left her bedridden. Shevchenko (15-3 MMA, 4-2 UFC) has questioned the champ’s willingness to fight. Even now, she’s skeptical whether something will derail the UFC 228 booking.

Shevchenko, however, hasn’t stopped preparing for her moment. She’s spent extensive time at the Performance Institute preparing herself for her second UFC title bout, which follows a failed bid for the bantamweight belt against champ Amanda Nunes.

The flyweight division is where Shevchenko feels comfortable after fighting at her walk-around weight as a 135-pound fighter.

“It was a little difficult – or not difficult, but different to fight someone who was cutting from 150, 155 pounds and then after the weigh-in gaining it back,” she said. “It doesn’t mean I was feeling bad. I was feeling good, but at flyweight, I feel much better. Fighting with the same size opponent, it gives you the opportunity to show more skills.”

Shevchenko is also working alongside her older sister, Antonina Shevchenko, who was recently signed to the UFC after a turn on Dana White’s Contenders Series.

As far as her approach to the fight, the younger Shevchenko said she won’t do anything different than what she’s done to get here.

“I’m very comfortable in every aspect of the fight,” she said. “(My coach) Pavel (Fedotov), he trains me every time and motivates different situations in the fight.

“It doesn’t matter if I have it in the fight or not, we train it. Even if I face some strange situation, I will know how to react. That’s why I know what I have to do to win the fight.”

Hopefully, of course, all of that training won’t go to waste. But Shevchenko isn’t discounting any possibility as UFC 228 approaches.

“Anything can happen,” she said. “Knowing her, seeing how she was reacting, how she said I’m ready for July 7, and she wanted to fight, but when the UFC came back to her and said let’s do it July 28, she said, ‘I need more time.’ You never know what can happen. Before I see her in the octagon, I will not believe she will do everything right.”

For more on UFC 228, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.