This Saturday Janay Harding takes part in what is the biggest fight of her young MMA career when she faces featherweight veteran, Arlene Blencowe. The Australians are set to co-main event the highly anticipated inaugural Legend MMA event in their home country. Blencowe is comfortably ranked in the top ten in the featherweight world rankings, a win for Harding would see her take that position.

The UFC recently announced the creation of a 145 pound division, there is no doubt the company will soon be looking to sign more females to fill up the division, a win for Harding could see her position herself for a contract with the premiere mixed martial arts organization sometime this year.

Harding reveals she fully plans on taking Blencowe’s place in the rankings, she believes there are weaknesses in Arlene’s style that she can capitalize on.

“Obviously the plan is to change that ranking and I believe I can get the job done so I’m looking forward to introducing the featherweight division to a new comer like myself and possibly breaking into that top ten. There’s definitely things in Arlene’s style that I can work on countering like anyone, we have a game plan, so I think it’ll make for an exciting fight”.



Harding says she has been wanting to fight an opponent at the level of Blencowe for a long time, she has nothing but praise for the Bellator veteran. She admits being ranked is a bonus, but right now she is focused on the fight.

“Arlene is definitely the kind of calibre of opponent I’ve been hoping to fight. She’s an impeccable athlete with an extensive repertoire of skills and an impressive resume of fights so I’m stoked to have the opportunity to share the cage with her. She’s definitely been someone I’ve looked up to through most of my career so I can speak highly enough about her and it’s an awesome opportunity for me to get this fight.”

“The rankings actually haven’t been a major priority of mine because I’m just concentrating on performing to the best of my ability on Saturday night and showing everyone what I’m capable of. Entering the top ten is definitely a bonus though.”

Janay Harding (2-2-0) is an exciting prospect to look out for in the featherweight division, she owns vicious round one TKO victories over the likes of Helen Malone and Jess Doueihi. She has close decision losses to Invicta FC veterans Jessica Rose-Clark and highly touted number five ranked featherweight in the world, Megan Anderson. Harding says these losses have made her stronger as a fighter and gave her the chance to develop aspects of her game which she had previously been neglecting.

Janay Harding will challenge Arlene Blencowe and her top ten world ranking this Saturday in the co-main event of Legends MMA 1. The event will take place from the Jupiters Gold Coast in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia and will be aired live on pay-per-view, worldwide on FITE TV from 4am EST, 9am BST.

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