The last time Erin Blanchfield competed at Madison Square Garden couldn’t have gone any better from the moment the referee said, “Let’s go,” to the adulation she earned from the masses for her utter dominance against Molly McCann.
OK, there’s one thing that wasn’t ideal from that momentous November 2022 night: a crowd much more vocal in its pre-fight support for McCann — whose vocal fans traveled well across the pond from England — than Blanchfield, the Elmwood Park, N.J., native whose parents are from the city.
“I was there at the fight, and I just remember kind of being shocked and kind of arguing with the whole crowd,” teammate Fatima Kline recalled to The Post. “It was me and my parents, and we were like, ‘No, no, Erin’s gonna win,’ and everybody’s like, ‘No, she’s not.’ And then she submitted [McCann] in [under 4] minutes and, ‘I told you so.’ ”
The return trip to the World’s Most Famous Arena, coming Nov. 15 at UFC 322, should feature a more partisan crowd in the local’s favor.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
