Maycee
Barber had heard the rumblings, so it’s easy to understand why
she was quite pleased to put Amanda
Ribas away inside the distance at
UFC on ABC 5.
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“The Future” earned her first finish since 2019, defeating Ribas
via second-round TKO in Saturday’s co-main event at Vystar
Veteran’s Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.
“It means everything,” Barber said. “Every time I step out in the
cage, I’m going out for a finish, and the competition is getting
tougher, but at the same time I really needed to step it up and
just get into that zone again, and just put myself in that position
where I’m like, ‘You know what? There’s no way out of this except
for me finishing this girl.’
“I think that with my last few performances, people are probably
like, ‘Oh, well, she’s going to go to a decision, she’s backing
down.’ But I’m not backing down and I’m coming to finish these
girls again.”
Barber has won five consecutive UFC appearances and has been
victorious in eight of 10 fights overall within the promotion. The
25-year-old Team Alpha Male product’s last defeat came at the hands
of reigning flyweight queen Alexa
Grasso at UFC 258 in February 2021. Barber has her sights set
on avenging that defeat — whether Grasso successfully defends her
title in the Sept. 16 rematch with Valentina
Shevchenko or not.
“I’ve been saying it time and time again, whether Alexa wins
against Valentina or not, I do want that rematch,” Barber said. “So
we’ll see. That would be ideal, but we’ll see. I’m going to go back
and talk to Hunter [Campbell], Mick [Maynard], and the team, and
figure it out.”
Grasso’s fourth-round submission victory over Shevchenko in the UFC
285 co-main event this past March is the frontrunner for 2023
“Upset of the Year,” but Barber sees the rematch as being more of a
coin flip.
“It’s a toss-up. Alexa is an incredible fighter. Valentina was a
dominant champion for so long for a reason,” she said. “So
honestly, it’s something where it’s hard to give a prediction
because anything can happen.”