GoFundMe

UFC flyweight Sarah Alpar made headlines for her wildly successful GoFundMe campaign to help fund her training camp. She says that these donations from the likes of Jake Paul, Triller, and others changed her life. Alpar has had a less than stellar start to her UFC career, losing her first fight in the promotion after getting a win on the Contender Series. This, coupled with a handful of canceled bouts lefts her in a tough financial situation, which eventually led to her GoFundMe. This fundraiser gained traction after being picked up by media, and got massive donations from both Triller and Jake Paul, seemingly to stick it to the UFC. Regardless of their motives though, Sarah told MiddleEasy that these donations immediately changed her life. "I was super overwhelmed. Literally in a day, my life changed," Alpar said. "My life changed overnight. My Instagram followers shot up, everybody was contacting me. By the end of the day I was worn out by all the stimulus coming at me. "For me, this has just been all a blessing, I'm taking it in and I'm grateful for the opportunity... I got to do a Zoom talk with (Jake). I got to see his face, and got to really know his personality. He's cool, I like him." https://www.instagram.com/p/CSsu124jsOo/ No Word From The UFC The GoFundMe from Sarah Alpar was one of the early stages of a recent trend of fighters discussing how underpaid they are. This is something that was seen as recently as the last UFC event, when headliner Jared Cannonier said he was broke. Despite the subsequent outpouring of fighters talking about pay, Sarah says that nobody from the UFC has said anything to her about the GoFundMe, positively or negatively. She also made it clear that it was not her intent to shed bad light on the promotion. "They haven't told me anything. I'm sure they've been asked a bazillion questions and things have happened. I wanted to make sure that they knew, hey I'm not attacking UFC. This wasn't about UFC, this was about me just trying to make it for the next couple of months until my next fight," Alpar said. "It just so happens that it all came together while I was doing this GoFundMe, that people are having these issues with the UFC and saying you need to pay your athletes more and this and that. It came at a perfect time. That part made me a little uncomfortable, like hold on. I'm Switzerland over here, I wanted no part in that, that's not my intention." https://www.instagram.com/p/CS67P8VDcH6/ Sarah Alpar Set To Fight Erin Blanchfield Despite dealing with numerous cancellations and rescheduling, Sarah Alpar is finally set to return to the Octagon on September 18th, against Erin Blanchfield. She hopes to get her first UFC win, after falling short in her debut to veteran Jessica Rose-Clarke. Heading into this fight, Sarah says that she and Erin are fairly equal in terms of skills and experience. So she is hoping to make an impact when she drops down in weight to fight at flyweight for the first time since 2015. "I am so excited about this fight. It's a great matchup. I feel like the cards are more even. Like Jessica, my last fight, she's a veteran and I feel like I could have done better in that fight, for sure. So I'm happy to get a mulligan and help make my name known, and show who I am and what I'm about. I'm excited, this is going to be a great fight," Alpar said. "Over the years, my body and my weight has struggled so much. So at first, I was like 'Am I ready? Do I need to go one more time at 135?' but I just felt like that is what I needed to do. I needed to go to 125 and I already feel better." https://www.youtube.com/watch?vaOxV7PAn3rM Sarah Alpar faces Erin Blanchfield on September 18th. It will be interesting to see if she can get her first win in the UFC.