Erin Blanchfield (23, USA), who is aiming for the youngest female UFC champion, will clash with former UFC strawweight champion Jessica Andrade (31, Brazil).
The two fighters will face off in the main event of ‘UFC Fight Night: Andrade vs. Blanch Field’ held at UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA on the 19th (Korean time).
Blanchfield has a 4-0 record in the UFC. She rose to stardom by beating Molly McCann (32, England), her popular player, in November last year. As of now, she is 23 years and 9 months, breaking former Women’s Strawweight Champion Rose Namajunas’ record (25 years and 5 months) and she has the potential to become the youngest female UFC champion.
She has been practicing Jiu-Jitsu since she was seven years old. In 2017, she defeated former Bellator MMA Champion Ilima-Ray MacFarlane to become the Eddie Bravo Invitational Champion.
Her original opponent for Blanche Field, number 10 in the rankings, was number 1 Tayla Santos. However, when two of Santos’ coaches ran into problems with visas, No. 3 Andraji in the women’s flyweight rankings came in as a pinch hitter.
Andraji is considered a more formidable opponent, although her rank is lower than that of Santos. Santos is a KO machine with strong wrestling abilities, while her striking abilities are mediocre jiu-jitsu. She has five KO wins in the UFC alone. From Blanch Field’s point of view, if her specialty Jiu-Jitsu doesn’t work, she will have to engage in a slugfest with Andraji.
At Media Day held on the 16th, Blanchfield said, “Andraji is incredibly tough. He is a different opponent than Santos,” he said.
Regarding the possibility of a title shot, “I know that it is definitely possible. But first, I’m going to focus on Andraji,” he said, “because if we don’t win here, everything will fly away.”
Andrade was also wary of Blanchfield’s Jiu-Jitsu. He emphasized, “Blanchfield has excellent evasion in terms of hitting, but his power is not great. 온라인바카라
Andrade is aiming for a title shot at the women’s strawweight division, a weight class in which he has been champion. He wants revenge on Zhang Weili, who took the championship belt from him.
“Like I’ve said all along, I wanted to stay at strawweight,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jim Miller (39, USA), who holds the record for the most UFC appearances (40 matches) and the most wins (24 wins), participates in this event and writes a new history. Miller breaks his record for most appearances just by playing, and breaks the record for most wins by winning. The opponent is Alexander Hernandez (30, USA), who came in as a pinch hitter for Gabriel Benitez.
The UFC Fight Night: Andrade VS Blanch Field main card will be broadcast live on TVING and tvN SPORTS from 9:00 am on the 19th (Sun).