UFC Fight Night 219 Aftermath: How Erin Blanchfield’s Decision Making Bested Jessica Andrade

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Erin Blanchfield made an incredible statement on Saturday by dominating Jessica Andrade at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. Blanchfield dealt with the pressure, power and physicality of Andrade and put her away with a rear-naked choke in Round 2. Now, Blanchfield will find herself inside the Top 5 in the Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s flyweight division, with her eyes firmly set on reigning titleholder Valentina Shevchenko. In the UFC Fight Night 219 Aftermath, we take a look at Blanchfield and her win over Andrade:

STRAIGHT PUNCHING WINS FIGHTS

Leading up to the fight, I worried about Andrade’s power and physicality and questioned how Blanchfield would deal with it. I went so far as to call Andrade a much tougher matchup than the originally scheduled Taila Santos. An excerpt from that post: “While that title defense might have been tougher for Shevchenko than the Andrade fight, Andrade is a much more difficult opponent for Blanchfield. A win here would be a huge boost to Blanchfield’s case for a title shot.”

Whatever Silver Fox is doing in the gym with Blanchfield has been working. Blanchfield, who is predominantly a grappler, showed that her striking compliments her grappling quite well. Blanchfield used her striking to stay safe on the feet and kept her head off the center line with sound footwork. On paper, Blanchfield shouldn’t have been the better fighter standing. Andrade had the power. Andrade had the knockouts. How did Blanchfield nullify this?

The answer lies in what Andrade brings to the table. Silver Fox and Blanchfield did a fantastic job tailoring the game plan to Andrade, and that bodes well for her in future fights. The gameplan was actually quite simple: punch straight. This allowed Blanchfield to intercept the blitzing Andrade by beating her to the punch (pun intended) as she came in looking for wide, looping shots.

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The premise is simple: The quickest way to get somewhere is to go in a straight line from Point A to Point B. In Figure 1 above, we see (1) Blanchfield already stepped in on a jab. Where Andrade falls short here is her insistence on throwing the hooks to keep an opponent off. This doesn’t work well for an opponent who wants to throw straight. Blanchfield isn’t the most powerful puncher in the division; in fact, she’s a grappler first. However, we can see she makes good decisions on the feet by (2) throwing a straight right cross that lands clean to Andrade’s jaw and causes her knees to buckle despite the Brazilian being the one known for power. Blanchfield took advantage of Andrade’s loopy punching from the start of the fight by using the jab and the cross, all while knowing that getting in a firefight with “Bate Estaca” would end in disaster.

When fighters like Shevchenko, Rose Namajunas and Joanna Jedrzejczyk have made the conscious decision not to brawl with Andrade, their success has been magnified. Blanchfield was caught with some heavy punches, but she didn’t see red. She didn’t get drawn into a firefight. She stayed calm, kept the forward pressure up and continued to implement the gameplan she trusted her team to devise.

Another area that really stood out to me was Blanchfield’s footwork. We saw in the past that Andrade struggled against Namajunas, who made sure to stay off the center line to keep the Brazilian whiffing with punches at an opponent who wouldn’t be there. Yet again, Silver Fox did a fantastic job preparing for this. Pairing the straight punches with defensive footwork was the silver bullet for Blanchfield to put Andrade away.

We see plenty of high-level fighters in MMA and boxing who rely on exiting on an angle to keep a power puncher guessing where they are going to be. Vasyl Lomachenko utilizes the pivot extensively and will come in and out of the pocket on much larger opponents on a 45-degree angle. Make no mistake, I’m not comparing the footwork of Blanchfield and Lomachenko; the two are on completely different planets. However, the concept is the same no matter how good you are as a fighter: Hit and don’t get hit.

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With Blanchfield, it was as simple as not staying in the pocket and not backing straight out for Andrade to blitz. In Figure 2, we see Blanchfield (1) looking for the jab and cross again. Only this time, she gets met by some vicious hooks from Andrade. When she realizes what’s going on in the pocket, (2) Blanchfield throws her right arm up, mid cross. It’s ugly but effective, as the left hook from Andrade finds the shoulder and not the head. You’ll also notice that Blanchfield is shifting her front foot slightly so she can begin the pivot out of the pocket safely. (3) To continue her safe exit of the situation, Blanchfield keeps a long guard with her arms to continue to crowd Andrade’s punching lane and slide her right foot out and away from the Brazilian and the pocket. The end result (4) is Blanchfield getting out of the pocket safely and Andrade left wondering where her opponent went.

What makes the UFC Apex so interesting is that we can hear the corner advice being shouted to the fighters. Around 2:30 in Round 2, we actually hear Blanchfield’s coaches say, “stay off the center line,” indicating to us that this was the gameplan all along.

The formula for beating Andrade has always been to stay smart on the feet and not be scared of her strength. With the good decision making done by Blanchfield in her fights, we get to see that in action again, although this time, we get to see how good she looked against a top contender. The difference in this as opposed to the previous losses Andrade has suffered is that we know that Shevchenko, Namajunas and Jedrzejczyk were favored to beat her. Blanchfield was up in the air and far less of a certain thing. Perhaps this is what made the win as impressive as it was.

Finally, we have to look how Blanchfield, a fighter who isn’t as strong as Andrade, managed to get the fight to the ground. As mentioned before, it’s the decision making that makes Blanchfield so dangerous. She knows when her position is good; she knows when she’s losing it; and she knows where she’s going with almost every situation. This led to her getting to the ground and eventually the rear-naked choke that put the fight away. I’m far less interested in the choke when looking at how Blanchfield initially got the fight to the ground. Her timing on the takedown couldn’t have been more perfect, and Blanchfield actually picked up on that from the striking aspect. The key to the takedown was Andrade’s positioning. Blanchfield gathered that in those early first-round exchanges where she may have gotten dinged.

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To take down Andrade, Blanchfield keyed in on the hips. Andrade likes to square up to throw her power punches, and in Figure 3, (1) we see her doing just that. She’s in the pocket and square, which means her balance can be easily overcome and a takedown is highly possible. (2) Blanchfield gets in on the takedown and locks her hands. Andrade doesn’t go to pummel her hands, as circled, and instead grabs a whizzer and tries to pull Blanchfield up. With that great situational awareness Blanchfield possesses, she (3) goes with the flow and comes up on the body lock, letting Andrade think she has a win. However, it’s just part of Blanchfield’s ruse. She sticks that leg around the back for an inside trip. With the advantageous position Blanchfield creates—a squared-up Andrade does not have the underhook—she can push the Brazilian right over and (4) does so with relative ease.

Blanchfield did so well in this position because she didn’t hang around in the clinch too long with the shorter, stockier Andrade. She got in and got the takedown as fast as she was comfortable with doing so. If she were to hang around in the clinch any longer, Andrade could have established position, gotten to the fence to begin to fight the hands or employed a multitude of other counter measures. Blanchfield knew this and got down as soon as possible.

Of course, Blanchfield went on to hop right over to side control, forced Andrade to give up her back and cinched the rear-naked choke. Her win was incredibly impressive and deserves all the praise it gets. While it would be optimal that she fights Shevchenko next for the title, I want to see her against Santos, the originally scheduled opponent. Andrade was in on short notice, and Santos gave Shevchenko fits. Let’s do it on a full camp and see if Blanchfield can pass one more test before taking a shot at ending the Shevchenko reign.