Erin Blanchfield earned a unanimous 48-47 decision victory over Rose Namajunas. This fight really came down to how the judges scored the 4th round. Namajunas clearly took the first two rounds, while Blanchfield clearly took the 3rd and 5th. Round 4 was close enough that it wouldn’t have been a robbery either way.
This represents the biggest win of Blanchfield’s career. After getting shutdown by Manon Fiorot earlier this year, it was going to be important to see how she would respond. The first two rounds looked a lot like her fight with Fiorot, but this time she found a way to get her hand raised by taking the three following rounds. An impressive feat at just 25 years old against a former champion like Namajunas.
Her striking defense still needs some polishing as it’s still clear that she relies a lot on her ability to take her opponent’s shots in order to get to her body locks. This kind of toughness can age young fighters a lot quicker if this bad habit is left unchecked in the long-term.
In her post-fight interview with Daniel Cormier, she called out Alexa Grasso. A very realistic callout that proves she understands that this win cannot leapfrog her past Manon Fiorot, who defeated both Blanchfield and Namajunas in her last two outings. It’s also a very smart callout as Grasso is the number 1 ranked contender as of now and lost her title by getting outwrestled for all five rounds. You would imagine that Blanchfield was licking her fingers watching that co-main event at the Sphere.
As for Namajunas, this doesn’t set her back too much. She is ranked in the top 5, is still a very popular fighter and she arguably won this fight anyway. However, it did show that she may be a bit undersized at 125 lbs. She was physically outmatched in her divisional debut against Fiorot. Her two wins at flyweight came against Amanda Ribas, a fighter who keeps jumping between 115 and 125, and a short-notice Tracy Cortez, who is a bit small at flyweight herself. Skills pay the bills, but this fight may have shown us that when the skill level appears to be equal, physicality will become a difference-maker.
She can still perform very well in this division, but losses to Manon Fiorot and Erin Blanchfield probably puts a ceiling on her aspirations at flyweight.
