Erin Blanchfield takes on Maycee Barber in the main event for UFC Fight Night in Las Vegas tonight. This will be an intriguing clash between a pair of Top-5 flyweights, and UFC odds have Blanchfield installed as a -250 favorite.

Maycee Barber is the No. 5-ranked women's flyweight contender, and she enters this event on a six-fight win streak. That said, she was fortunate to get her hand raised in controversial decision wins against Andrea Lee and Miranda Maverick. Meanwhile, Erin Blanchfield is 7-1 in the UFC and is one spot ahead of Barber in the flyweight rankings. She's coming off a win against Rose Namajunas in November, which allowed her to bounce back from a decision loss to No. 2 contender Manon Fiorot. Barber has impressive physicality and power, but there's a decent gap in skill between the two fighters. This becomes especially evident on the ground, where Blanchfield boasts some of the best grappling in the division and Barber struggles with takedown defense. Blanchfield has gone the full 25 minutes in her last two fights, and she knows how to dig deep in the championship rounds. That experience, along with her significant grappling advantage, should lead to victory tonight.

Barber blasted her way into UFC with a technical knockout victory on Dana White’s “Contender Series” back in summer 2018, but hit a rough patch early in her UFC career. Following back-to-back losses to Roxanne Modafferi and Alexa Grasso, Barber rattled off six straight wins but only managed one finish along the way. In addition, four of those victories came against opponents who are no longer with the promotion. The biggest concern for Barber coming into this five-round headliner is her conditioning. “The Future” — who already blew out her ACL in 2020 — missed more than a year of action as a result of illness and will now be tasked with 25 minutes of violence against a 26 year-old flyweight competing in the prime of her career. “I don’t care who’s in front of me,” Barber told MMA Fighting. “I’m ready to put them all away and get my spot for the belt. I’ve never turned down a fight and I’ve never said no. I’ve never walked away from anything, and there was like five different names that were thrown at me, but the only one that stuck, I think the only one that made sense — whether it was like from an injury perspective or matchup perspective, I think all of it added up — it was Erin and so I took it and here we are. [I don’t want] a back and forth brawl, so I plan on hurting Erin and I plan on finishing her in a dominant way and getting my spot.