Maycee Barber Targets Alexa Grasso Rematch After UFC Jacksonville Victory

Maycee Barber had heard the rumblings, so it’s easy to understand why she was quite pleased to put Amanda Ribas away inside the distance at UFC on ABC 5.

“The Future” earned her first finish since 2019, defeating Ribas via second-round TKO in Saturday’s co-main event at Vystar Veteran’s Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.

“It means everything,” Barber said. “Every time I step out in the cage, I’m going out for a finish, and the competition is getting tougher, but at the same time I really needed to step it up and just get into that zone again, and just put myself in that position where I’m like, ‘You know what? There’s no way out of this except for me finishing this girl.’

“I think that with my last few performances, people are probably like, ‘Oh, well, she’s going to go to a decision, she’s backing down.’ But I’m not backing down and I’m coming to finish these girls again.”

Barber has won five consecutive UFC appearances and has been victorious in eight of 10 fights overall within the promotion. The 25-year-old Team Alpha Male product’s last defeat came at the hands of reigning flyweight queen Alexa Grasso at UFC 258 in February 2021. Barber has her sights set on avenging that defeat — whether Grasso successfully defends her title in the Sept. 16 rematch with Valentina Shevchenko or not.

“I’ve been saying it time and time again, whether Alexa wins against Valentina or not, I do want that rematch,” Barber said. “So we’ll see. That would be ideal, but we’ll see. I’m going to go back and talk to Hunter [Campbell], Mick [Maynard], and the team, and figure it out.”

Grasso’s fourth-round submission victory over Shevchenko in the UFC 285 co-main event this past March is the frontrunner for 2023 “Upset of the Year,” but Barber sees the rematch as being more of a coin flip.

“It’s a toss-up. Alexa is an incredible fighter. Valentina was a dominant champion for so long for a reason,” she said. “So honestly, it’s something where it’s hard to give a prediction because anything can happen.”