LAS VEGAS — There’s little doubt 2020 was a challenging year for [autotag]Maycee Barber[/autotag].
For one thing, there were the issues we all had to deal with during the coronavirus pandemic. Add in a serious knee injury that required surgery, and the always-active Barber (8-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC) found herself going a little bit out of her mind.
“There was a lot,” Barber said at Wednesday’s UFC 258 media day. “I had the injury, then I had surgery, then COVID and the quarantine and a lot of different things, just as a fighter and an athlete. Being taken out of the gym and training, that’s hard because I went from being an athlete since I was 3 years old and training my entire life and being active to, ‘OK, now you’re out.’ You can’t even walk unless you’re on crutches. You have a brace. You can’t do anything physical for a while, and it’s like, what do I do? What am I supposed to do with myself?”
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Compounding matters was Barber’s first loss, a major upset to Roxanne Modafferi in which she injured her knee early, but still went the distance. The 22-year-old Barber, who meets Alexa Grasso in a flyweight fight Saturday, has confidently said she’s going to become the UFC’s youngest champion, and the loss brought much social media backlash.
But as far as Barber is concerned, it only shows that people care enough to pay attention.
“I try not to pay too much attention, because deep down I knew I was prepared to go into a fight,” Barber said of the response to the loss. “You sign on the line to fight. You know, you’re saying, ‘I’m ready to get into the octagon with another person and get locked in the cage, and one of them is going to go down.’ I suffered an injury and I suffered a very bad one – I still am going to fight through it. People on the outside are always going to have something to say, whether it’s good or bad. The thing that matters is they have something to say – they have an opinion on it. … I didn’t really care if it was good or bad. It’s like, ‘Hey, they’re commenting.'”
That was 2020, and this is 2021. Barber is back, and she’s in one of the highest profile spots of her career in the co-feature slot of a pay-per-view event and taking on a highly touted competitor in Grasso (12-3 MMA, 4-3 UFC).
And as far as Barber is concerned, everything she’s been through in the past year to get back to this point all will pay off once she steps into the cage.
“She’s tough, you know?” Barber said. “She’s a great fighter. She’s strong, (has) a great following behind her, I’ve got a great following behind me – I think it’s a great fight. There’s going to be a lot of eyes – it’s co-main event. We have a great fight ahead of us. I’m super excited for it and I’m ready to go out and get a finish.”
UFC 258 takes place Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on ESPN+.
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