UFC women’s flyweight Miranda Maverick has suggested favoritism and hype played a part in her decision defeat against Maycee Barber.
The fight, which took place on the main card of UFC Vegas 32 last month, saw Maverick largely control the opening two rounds. Despite a strong third frame from Barber, most fans and pundits scored the fight in favor of the 24-year-old. A hefty 89.6% of voters on MMA Decisions thought “Fear The” Maverick, who out struck her opponent by 82 to 38 across the three rounds, clearly did enough to secure a win on the scorecards.
Despite initially accepting that she hadn’t been “fierce” enough to ensure the win, Maverick believes she dominated the opening two rounds and should definitely have left the Octagon with another name added to her résumé.
During an appearance on MMA on SiriusXM, the Missouri-born flyweight admitted that she could have done more in the final five minutes, but, given her performance for the majority of the fight, she doesn’t understand how that succumbed her to a first defeat in the UFC.
“I know, in my view, I dominated the second round. The third round, a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, you sat back, you were lazy,’ whatever. I was like, ‘I was tired.’ I fought about as hard as I could in the first and second round. Maybe I could’ve done more getting off the wall. Hindsight’s 20/20. For anybody that’s in there, hindsight’s always 20/20. Could’ve done more in the third round.
“But either way, after the fight, I definitely thought I had won it. I had my doubts once they started calling the decision. When they said it was split, I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ And I almost knew as soon as they said it was a split decision, like somewhere inside me, I knew I had lost.”
Citing the pre-fight build-up, which, according to Maverick, was all engineered towards and focused on Barber, the 125-pound prospect hinted that the hype surrounding “The Future” played a part in the result.
“I think Maycee is very hyped up. You can see on even the UFC’s media, she had three posts leading up to our fight, I had zero. Dana White, she had a post; I had zero. I don’t know why she’s so hyped, whether it was because she started out the youngest in the UFC, I don’t know if it’s something they want to push: the arrogance that she started out with in her career.”
Barber started her career in about as impressive a fashion as she could have. After securing a UFC contract on series 13 of Dana White’s Contender Series, the 23-year-old went on to win her opening three appearances in the Octagon. TKO wins against Hannah Cifers, JJ Aldrich, and Gillian Robertson had her high on the promotion’s radar for future title contenders.
Despite defeats to Alexa Grasso and Roxanne Modafferi, Maverick seemingly believes the UFC still holds a level of favoritism towards the Colorado native. But the former Invicta star holds nothing against Barber.
“I will say she was respectful to me before the fight. And after the fight, I’m not even gonna whine about what she said about winning. Anybody would do that. What are you gonna say? ‘Oh, yeah, I think I lost that fight.’ No. Nobody’s gonna say that, so giving her crap about it is not right. The judges, however, yeah, I don’t know what they were looking at,” said Maverick.
Having slipped to the penultimate spot in the rankings following her defeat on July 24, Miranda Maverick will be looking to rebound quick and re-rail her promising future on MMA’s biggest stage.
Maycee Barber, meanwhile, sits at #13 and will be looking to leap even further up the 125-pound ladder next time out against another top 15 opponent. Considering their ages, both women are likely to be around the division and fighting the best in the UFC for a long time to come.
Do you think Miranda Maverick should have been awarded the victory over Maycee Barber at UFC Vegas 32?
