New Jersey has produced one champion in their 30-year history in the UFC. That man is Frankie Edgar out of Toms River, New Jersey. 13 years later, New Jersey has another contender and her name is Erin Blanchfield.

Blanchfield is new to the UFC scene. She made her debut in September of 2021 and strung together wins against Sarah Alphar, Miranda Maverick, J.J. Aldrich and Molly McCann.

In the biggest test of her career, she made relatively easy work of the former strawweight champion and flyweight challenger Jessica Andrade, submitting her with a rear-naked choke in round two. This launched her to rank No. 3 in women’s flyweight and No. 8 in the women’s pound-for-pound list.

With a top three win under her belt, the question has to be asked; When does she get a shot at the title?

She’ll have to wait until after March 4th when current champion Valentina Shevchenko takes on Mexico’s own Alexa Grasso.

Effects of bout vs Andrade

The bout vs Andrade was interesting. Andrade hits hard and throws fast, which is the perfect counter to someone with the style of Blanchfield.

Blanchfield showed a lot in this fight. She showed that she could take a punch and counter well, and once she got the fight to the ground, she proved that her grappling is next level and almost immediately passed into side control, which led to the choke.

Who does she do better against?

As mentioned previously, the flyweight belt is up for contention at UFC 285 on March 4th between Shevchenko and Grasso. Both fighters have striking background with the champion being a better grappler.

Watching both of their last fights, the champion has shown some signs of an achilles heel with susceptibilities to effective grappling vs Taila Santos.

Grasso has been able to hold her own against effective grapplers while continuing to shine in striking.

Even with the skills of Andrade striking-wise, effective strikers like Shevchenko will likely cause issues for Blanchfield. On the contrary, Grasso isn’t as technical of a grappler as Shevchenko, but she is technical in her striking.

All things considered, it’s likely that if Grasso pulls the upset off, Blanchfield will have a better chance to win the title.

No matter what happens going forward, Blanchfield is in a very good spot for a title shot.