Maycee Barber: I told Dana White ‘I get one of the bonuses’

Barber was all confidence in and out of the cage for her first UFC fight. And while she didn’t end up with one of the $50,000 post-fight bonuses for UFC Denver, she’s made it clear that she’s not asking the UFC for opportunities. She’s telling them.

Maycee Barber entered her UFC debut radiating confidence. The undefeated 20-year-old fighting out of Fort Collins, CO came to the Octagon with a certain amount of hype and expectation around her. In part the product of a strong TKO win on Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series, in part a shiny 5-0 unbeaten record.

Mostly, however, the excitement around her debut seemed to come from the way she carried herself, as though she’d already been there before.

“I get one,” shouted out after her victory on DWTNCS, referring to a UFC contract. Not a question, or an ask, just a statement of fact.

All of which culminated in a strong debut in the cage on Saturday, November 10th, in Denver on the under-card of the Chan Sung Jung vs. Yair Rodriguez Fight Night. Barber faced what was likely the toughest competition of her young career and put together what may have been her most complete performance: a TKO via ground-and-pound over the 8-2 Hannah Cifers.

After the fight, she once again turned to White with a singular demand.

“I told him I get one of the bonuses,” Barber responded when asked about her post fight words for White. “I told him that, just like I told him I got the contract. And look where I am.”

“I don’t know,” she said, when asked what his response was. “There’s a couple things we went back and forth on, but I’m pretty sure he might give me one.”

Unfortunately for the fast rising strawweight, this time her words didn’t appear to have the same impact... at least not officially. Yair Rodriguez took home a rare double bonus, for Fight of the Night (alongside Chan Sung Jung) as well as a Performance of the Night for his last second knockout. Donald Cerrone was the evening’s other big winner – with his 19th bonus stretching across his UFC & WEC careers – after submitting Mike Perry in the first round of the co-main event.

However, on a Monday interview with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, Barber suggested she may have gotten an undisclosed bonus from White for her win. And the strawweight did have one other demand, to get a spot on a “big” fight card. While she sounded more than happy to be on the UFC’s 25th anniversary show in Denver, if she keeps winning in impressive fashion, she may find herself on PPV before long.