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Women’s Flyweights

#12 WFLW | Erin Blanchfield (9-1, 3-0 UFC) vs. #15 WFLW | Molly McCann (13-4, 6-3 UFC)

ODDS: Blanchfield (-390), McCann (+320)

The UFC women’s flyweight division is filling up with young talent, and Blanchfield may just be the leader of that pack. A pro since 2018 despite being just 23 years of age, “Cold Blooded” came to the UFC late in 2021 with a solid amount of hype, even if her success was not guaranteed. Blanchfield flashed a lot of tools but was not a consistently overwhelming force despite her success, and a 2019 decision loss to Tracy Cortez raised some concerns that better athletes and wrestlers could neutralize her offense. Blanchfield dashed those concerns in short order upon hitting the Octagon, dominating Sarah Alpar before a December win over Miranda Maverick signaled her true arrival. Blanchfield is a much stronger fighter now that she is no longer a teenager, and she has channeled that into some aggression that has made her much more of a consistent fighter. Blanchfield should reach her championship potential sooner rather than later, though her last bout against J.J. Aldrich did finally see her run into some resistance during her UFC career. Even then, Blanchfield found an opening to suddenly turn things around and clamp on a fight-ending submission. Born in New Jersey and fighting out of New York, Blanchfield gets a home game here against McCann, who looks to ride her career-best momentum to an important win. McCann’s UFC debut in 2018 went about as poorly as possible. “Meatball” got outwrestled and tapped out in her hometown of Liverpool by Gillian Robertson, suggesting that she may be a one-dimensional striker without the athleticism to hang at the UFC level. However, McCann has surprisingly made things work. First came a three-fight winning streak against some of the cruder fighters near the bottom of the UFC’s ranks—a run of momentum that quickly came to an end after Taila Santos and Lara Procopio outmuscled her in wrestling-heavy affairs. McCann’s career found new life with the UFC’s two trips to London in 2022, when she served as an unlikely highlight. Her March knockout of Luana Carolina via spinning elbow remains absolutely stunning, even after McCann essentially repeated the trick with a similar knockout of Hannah Goldy in July. McCann has done a much better job of turning her moments of aggression into something effective, and that newfound dynamism and finishing ability makes this a more interesting fight than at any point in the last few years. For all those improvements, this does seem to be a fight where Blanchfield can get this to the mat more often than not; and given her impressive showing against Maverick and McCann’s historical struggles, the American should be able to turn that into one-sided domination, if not an outright finish. The pick is Blanchfield via clear decision.

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