UFC main event canceled at very last minute due to medical emergency
Fighters have got pulled from fights on event nights, but rarely minutes before they are set to make the walk out.
However, that is what happened late Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the Apex as main eventer Maycee Barber was deemed unfit to fight at UFC on ESPN 68 after she reportedly suffered a seizure backstage.
Her fight with Erin Blanchfield was so close to happening that the pre-fight video package rolled and they went to commercial before the walkouts. When they returned, they relayed the news (seen below), chalking it up to a “last-minute medical issue.”
Blanchfield later said she was waiting for her music to hit when she got the news from UFC exec Hunter Campbell who told her Barber suffered a seizure.
Blanchfield was critical of Barber ahead of the fight for her medical issues and previous pullouts, and was hesitant to accept this one. She was equally as critical at the post-event press conference, saying among other things, “(Barber is) a complete mess in every aspect of her entire life.”
Set to be contested at flyweight, Barber missed weight on Friday and had to make a deal with Blanchfield to go through with it. The two were originally slated to fight in December 2021 when Blanchfield replaced Montana De La Rosa, but Barber pulled out a month before for undisclosed reasons.
The 27-year-old Barber had a six-fight win streak going into Saturday, but hadn’t fought in more than a year. She said that after her win at UFC 299 in mid-2024, she suffered complications from the combination of pneumonia, strep throat, and a staph infection which led her to be hospitalized for nine days, saying she was diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus.