Outside Source
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.
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“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.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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