Kamaru Usman knows all about the pressure of a big fight, so he has some perspective when it comes to Maycee Barber not making the walk to the octagon this past Saturday.
Barber, riding a six-fight win streak, was scheduled to fight Erin Blanchfield in a flyweight contenders’ bout in the main event of UFC Vegas 107. However, just before the headliner was about to kick off, it was announced on the broadcast that Barber had withdrawn from the bout due to health issues.
An understandably frustrated Blanchfield later told reporters she has no plans to re-book the matchup and accused Barber of being “a complete mess in every aspect of her entire life.”
On his Pound-4-Pound podcast, Usman shared his thoughts about what happened Saturday.
“It was a very confusing situation,” Usman said. “They interviewed Erin Blanchfield after the fight, and, you know, she wasn’t wrong, really, with anything she said in that interview. Look at it. On Friday, Maycee missed weight by half a pound, and didn’t go back to try and get it off. … So the fight already didn’t start in a good way.”
Usman isn’t just speaking as an outside observer. He was in attendance for some of Barber’s training sessions and from what he saw, Barber looked ready to make a statement. Instead, Barber ended up pulling out of her second straight fight after she withdrew from a matchup with Rose Namajunas in July 2024, also due to health problems, the specifics of which remain unrevealed.
A longtime welterweight champion, Usman recalls his own struggles with making that step out past the curtain on fight night.
“The crazy thing is, I got to see Maycee Barber train for this fight,” Usman said. “She was working hard. She was training really hard. She had great training partners, I saw her do great drilling. … Looked great. So all this was kind of—obviously there have been different things that have led up to this throughout her career that have kind of put a black eye on everything. But missing the weight and then not showing up.
“We don’t know what happened back there. Erin Blanchfield was told she had a seizure. Sometimes you get those jitters. Hey, we all get those jitters. You about to walk out, I’ve got to pee, I’ve got to poop at the same time, I don’t know what’s going on. You’re scared, you’re excited, you’re anxious. Sometimes that flood of emotions can be too much for some guys. There are some guys that get to the arena—there have been guys that haven’t made the walk. Everyone thinks, because everyone is so spoiled watching us go other there and do these things, they don’t think we deal with these nerves in the back. We are all human and we deal with all these nerves. Whether it’s a panic attack or something, sometimes, once you get in that rabbit hole, it’s very hard to come out. Especially when there’s a clock on you saying, ‘Alright, five minutes, we’re walking! Four minutes!’ When you get in there, it’s very, very difficult to crawl out.”
When Barber competes again is anybody’s guess. In a statement following the UFC Vegas 107 main event cancellation, the 27-year-old apologized to the UFC and Blanchfield, adding, “We will get to the bottom of it all and be back.”
For now, Barber likely has to accept that her reputation has taken another hit in the court of public opinion.
“We all get nervous back there, but it’s part of being a professional,” Usman said. “It’s part of being in the UFC, the biggest, most recognizable organization in the world. When you get on this stage, hopefully you have done all the work to be able to hone in on all of those jitters, all of those feelings, so you are able to go out there and look like a professional in the biggest organization in the world.
“So if that’s what took place, then Erin wasn’t necessarily wrong. Maybe Maycee needs to see a sport psych or someone to hone everything in. But that was not a good look. It wasn’t.”
