Maycee Barber: ‘I’m Going To Break Her’

Now on her four-fight win streak, Barber believes that her move to Sacramento was the best decision she’s ever made in her life and feels like she’s in an environment where she can reach her full potential.

“The energy there, the technique there, the coaches there, the teammates there, it truly feels like a family,” Barber said of Team Alpha Male. “Every time you walk into the gym, you see fighters pushing each other and pushing themselves. It’s an environment that I genuinely look forward walking into every single day. There’s never been a moment that I’ve walked into the gym and been like, ‘I don’t really want to be here.’ I genuinely enjoy walking in even though I’m tired, even though I’m hurting. Good days, bad days, it doesn’t matter because everything goes away when you walk in the gym. It’s something that I love because this is my job, this is my career, this is my life. To have an environment that you walk into and people you get excited to see every single day, it’s truly special.”

While getting your hand raised is vital in the sport of mixed martial arts, Barber hasn’t been too pleased with her method of victory. Vowing to earn finishes inside the Octagon, Barber’s four-fight stretch has seen four decision wins.

With every win comes a more difficult challenge, however, which makes it all the more difficult to finish an opponent inside the distance.

“I think she’s a tough opponent,” Barber said of Ribas. “I think she’s someone who likes to go out there and scrap. I know that the things I possess, and from a technique standpoint, I’m gonna win that fight. From a mental standpoint, I’m going to break her. I’m going to wear her down.”

“If you’ve watched her fights, you would know that she likes to go [forward] and, at the same time, if you watch my fights, I love to go out and just swing and throw and give it everything I have. When you put two fighters that are willing to put everything into a fight, I think that’s where you have a fight that fans want to watch. It’s why we’re in the co-main event spot; It’s a fight that’s exciting. And for females, it’s really cool to have other females that want to go fight and fight to win. I’m excited and I’m ready.”

Without looking past her opponent this Saturday, Barber feels that Ribas is just an obstacle in her way on her ultimate path to the flyweight title and a rematch with 125-pound champion Alexa Grasso. It’s been over two years and four wins since their first fight, and Barber sees a night and day difference between the current and past versions of herself, and believes a rematch would look entirely different.

“I’ve grown so much,” Barber said since her loss to Grasso. “I’ve completely switched up camps, I’ve completely switched up places I’ve lived. I’m a whole different person. I keep saying I want that fight back and it’s so important for me to get it back because I know the person that I was and I know the person that I am, and all the traits that I have deep in my heart that I know I possessed back then, I have it still in me now and so much more.”