Erin Blanchfield has already achieved more in the related sports of BJJ and MMA than most women could ever dream of, but she’s only just been promoted to black belt just recently. Blanchfield became an EBI champion around four years ago at EBI 12 despite being just a purple belt at the time, and she’s already fought her way to a contract with the world’s premier MMA organization at just 22 years-old. Prior to her signing for the UFC, she had already managed to put together a 6-1 professional MMA record with half of her wins coming by way of finish and five of her fights being within the Invicta FC cage.
During her time spent on the Invicta FC roster, Blanchfield managed to win four of her five fights and was due to be rewarded with an opportunity to fight fellow talented grappler Pearl Gonzalez for the promotion’s Flyweight world championship. That fight never actually materialized however, as Blanchfield ended up signing a UFC contract to step in as a short-notice replacement for Bea Malecki against Norma Dumont, although that also never came to fruition as Dumont missed weight and was pulled from the card.
That unfortunate chain of events hasn’t slowed Blanchfield down however as she’s managed to book another fight for UFC 266 in September where she will face Sarah Alpar in her debut fight. Not only will this be the first fight Erin Blanchfield takes in the UFC cage, but it will also now be the first fight she takes as a BJJ black belt as well. She received her final belt promotion courtesy of the legendary ‘Silver Fox’ Karel Pravec, and shared news of it in a post to her official Instagram account.