While Maycee
Barber can recall some of what happened leading up to her
last-minute withdrawal from the UFC
Vegas 107 headliner last weekend, the exact cause remains a
mystery.
“I hate going back and being like we have no answers but we’re not
entirely sure what happened. Obviously, there was a medical
emergency,” Barber recently told ESPN. “We’re not quite sure what it was, what it is
but there was something that happened. I don’t exactly remember
everything but there was an event that happened in the back when I
was warming up and the doctor, the commissioners, everybody saw it
and the commissioners, I guess they were asking me if I was OK and
I was saying I was.
“They didn’t think that I was and so they kept asking the coaches —
and 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 doctor
and the next thing I know, I was in the back of an ambulance and
being transported to a hospital. Then I stayed there, doing a bunch
of tests trying to figure out what was going on.”
The initial word in the aftermath of the event was the Barber had
suffered some type of seizure just before the walkout for her fight
against Erin
Blanchfield. However, at this point there is no concrete
diagnosis. Barber did miss weight ahead of the fight, but it’s
unclear if that is related to the health issues she dealt with the
next day.
“I was told it looked like my autonomic nervous system might have
been having an issue,” Barber said. “They said it looked like a
pseudo-seizure is what I was told. But there’s no answers. There’s
really nobody who is like, ‘This is exactly what it was.’ It’s just
a lot of ‘we need to run tests and we need to get some
answers.’”
It’s not the first time “The Future” has dealt with health-related
setbacks in her career. She was hospitalized following her victory
over Katlyn
Cerminara at UFC 299, and further issues forced her to pull out
of a proposed booking against Rose
Namajunas last July.
In an ideal world, Barber, who has won six straight UFC bouts,
would be one of the top contenders in the women’s flyweight
division. Instead, she’s currently facing an uncertain future.
“I guess I’m just really confused to be honest,” Barber said. “As
far as my career and everything goes, the only thing that will
determine that is us finding out what it was. What’s going on or
what the issue was. Whether it is a nervous system issue or
whatever it is, because at the end of the day, the health is
first.
“We have to figure out that before I can be like ‘oh yeah, let’s
take a fight’ or before the UFC will even consider offering me a
fight.”
