Maycee Barber was supposed to headline a UFC event for the first time last Saturday but didn’t get to make the walk to the octagon.
She was scheduled to face fellow Top 5 ranked flyweight contender Erin Blanchfield in the UFC Vegas 107 main event but suffered a medical situation backstage moments before making the walk out. The bout was abruptly cancelled and Barber was transported to a hospital.
An emotional Barber spoke with ESPM MMA about what transpired backstage last weekend but couldn’t recall everything.
“We’re not entirely sure what happened. Obviously there was a medical emergency. We’re not quite sure exactly what it was, what it is, but there was something that happened. And I don’t exactly remember everything,” Barber said.
“There was an event that happened in the back when I was warming up and the doctor, the commissioners, like everybody saw it. And the commissioners were, I guess they were asking me if I was okay, and I was saying that I was and then they didn’t think that I was.
“They kept asking the coaches and the coaches were like – Again, I’m not entirely sure because it’s hard for me to remember everything that happened – But from what I was told the coaches were like, ‘We’re not quite sure.’ So they were trying to figure it out and they ended up all going and getting the doctors. Next thing I know I was in the back of the ambulance and being transported to the hospital.”
Barber underwent a litany of tests but still doesn’t have a definitive answer to what happened.
“I’m just really confused to what exactly happened medically. I talked Hunter [Campbell] and the UFC and they’re working to get me the best doctors possible, the best specialists and trying to get the best answers that we can,” Barber said.
Barber was so unaware and disoriented that she thought she lost to Blanchfield and had to be told that she didn’t fight.
“I thought I lost. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. And they were like, ‘Yeah, you didn’t fight. You didn’t fight at all,” she said.
Things took a scary and unexpected turn while Barber was warming up in the back preparing to make her way to the cage. The initial cause for concern came a half hour before she was supposed to walk out.
“I felt great going in. I remember going to the bus. I remember getting to the arena and I remember warming up, starting the warm up. I felt good. I was confident. I was like, you know what, this is the moment. This is when I get to walk out for my first main event. All of these things and then everything else is kind of a blur,” Barber explained.
“I remember bits and pieces. I remember Heather [Linden] and Dr. Davidson being up above me, like standing over me. And then I just remember getting in the back of an ambulance.”
