Maycee Barber was reportedly not given medical clearance to make the walk to the cage for her last scheduled fight with Erin Blanchfield and a previous opponent of the former has offered up their thoughts on the last minute withdrawal. Appearing on Bare Knuckle Bowker, Jessica Eye covered several subjects following her first victory as a debutant in the world of gloveless combat at BKFC 76 in Texas on June 21st.
When discussing the situation involving her former opponent Barber not being able to step into the cage for her May 31st battle of ranked UFC flyweights with Blanchfield, at the 15:50 mark in the embedded interview below, Eye said,
“Yeah, I mean I absolutely hated what happened to Maycee [Barber] and I’ve reached out to her about wanting to talk to her about health issues and possibly helping her from things I went through. So no, I did see that and I felt terrible for her… I’m here if she needs me.”
Maycee Barber and Jessica Eye’s history with one another
Jessica Eye and Maycee Barber seem to have a more support oriented dynamic between eachother these days, per the former above, but things got intense between the two just a bit over three years ago. On July 2nd, 2022 as part of the preliminary portion of UFC 276, Barber and Eye stepped into the cage to test skills against one another underneath the bright lights.
When the dust was settled, Barber earned a unanimous decision victory over the former UFC flyweight title challenger with Eye indicating her retirement from MMA in the fallout of their bout. This was Eye’s last UFC contest and began a period of jsut shy of three years where ‘Evil’ Eye was not seen plying her trade in live combat sports competition.
Eye has battled her own health issues in the life timeline from her UFC swan song to this recent BKFC debut. This partly informed her desire to reach out to her former opponent to see if Eye could provide any help to Barber in what was reported as a health issue for her.
