Maycee Barber is locked in on her goal of being youngest champion in UFC history, and believes she won’t make any missteps getting there.
Nicknamed “The Future,” Barber (7-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) has long vocalized her plan to break Jon Jones’ record as youngest UFC champion. The 21-year-old still has roughly two years to do it, and she said she’s trying to carefully plot every step.
That said, if Barber, who meets Gillian Robertson (7-3 MMA, 4-1 UFC) on Friday at UFC on ESPN 6, were to be offered a title shot against women’s flyweight champ Valentina Shevchenko (18-3 MMA, 7-2 UFC) right now, she would readily accept – and thinks she would win.
“I’m not trying to rush anything,” Barber told reporters, including MMA Junkie, at Wednesday’s UFC on ESPN 6 media day. “Technically, I believe if I was offered the fight with Valentina tomorrow I’d go in there and I truly believe I could win that fight and I could do everything to go out there and to win that fight and I believe it would be a fight and I believe that I would win that title, but why do it right now? Why not take the next couple years and not just go out there and fight her, but go out there and dominate her.”
Shevchenko is the dominant 125-pound queen who had yet to meet an equal in the weight class. It’s Barber’s division for now, but not the one she sees as a permanent home. Barber has fought at strawweight several times in her career, however, some struggles with her weight caused a move up.
Barber said she doesn’t rule out a future return to 115 pounds, and it’s there where she feels her talents shine brightest. She thinks a fight with Shevchenko is competitive, but when it comes to strawweight champ Weili Zhang (20-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC), she envisions a blowout.
“That’s the one I believe I could take right now I could go in and just dominate that fight,” Barber said. “Valentina could be back-and-forth and I believe I could take that title still, but I would rather have it be a beatdown than a back-and-forth brawl.”
Barber is steadfast in in her goal of winning a UFC title before her timeline to break Jones’ record expires. Beating Robertson at Friday’s UFC on ESPN 6 event, which takes place at TD Garden in Boston and airs on ESPN2, is the next obstacle. After that, she said it will be time to reevaluate how far she is from a belt.
“It’s kind of a hard question to answer because I don’t know (how many more fights until a title shot),” Barber said. “I’m fighting again and then I’m fighting Gillian and I’m taking this fight then I’m taking the next one. If it happens to be two fights from now or three fights from now I really don’t care. As long as it’s within my dates.”
Maycee Barber: I would beat UFC champ Valentina Shevchenko and 'dominate' Weili Zhang
