White: PVZ Doesn’t Want Barber … In Any Wight Class

Esther Lin/MMA Fighting

It seems Maycee Barber won’t get her much-desired fight against Paige VanZant, even though “The Future” doesn’t plan on slowing down with the callouts. According to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White, the fight is one the promotion wants to make. In fact, White recently told The Schmo that an offer was sent out to VanZant to make it happen, only to have it rejected on the spot.

In fact, White claims VanZant refuses to fight Barber at Strawweight and Flyweight.

“That’s the fight we’ve tried to make,” White said. “That is obviously an exciting fight Maycee wants really bad, but I don’t know if it’s a fight Paige wants bad. But we will see what happens. We offered it to her at 115 and 125 pounds, but she turned it down.”

VanZant has been very vocal about not wanting to award Barber a “money fight” for what she has deemed disrespectful behavior from “The Future” on the mic and on social media. To hear VanZant’s side of the story, Barber once slid into her husband Austin Vanderford’s direct messages.

It’s a claim Barber doesn’t deny, but says it was merely to get a link to a certain workout video Vanderford had … and nothing else. Nevertheless, that was more than enough to get on VanZant’s bad side, in essence ruining any shot of getting the chance to climb into the cage with her.

VanZan’t meanwhile, is nearing the end of her current UFC deal and will be testing the free agency market once it’s done. That means Barber’s chances of putting hands on “12 Gauge” are dwindling by the minute.

Meanwhile, VanZant recently took it upon herself to post a challenge on social media tagging every single fighter in the 115- and 125-pound weight classes … Barber excluded.