Las Vegas, NV — A lot has changed for Miranda Maverick of late. The flyweight recently eloped, though she does plan a ceremony later down the road. She’s made the move to Colorado to further her mixed martial arts career and up her training. Maverick’s also coming into UFC 269 as one of ESPN’s Top 25 MMA Fighters Under 25 — not a bad spot to be in as the readies herself to face fellow top prospect Erin Blanchfield.
“I was happy about the ESPN rankings that came out. That, and Michael Chandler putting me at #3,” Maverick (9-3) told Cageside Press in a recent exclusive interview.
Less happy is what Maverick is about her last fight, which most saw as a robbery. Maycee Barber, who Maverick came in ahead of on the ESPN list, won the split decision. On paper at least.
“I think I knew after the fight that it should have been my W,” Maverick stated. “I was kind of shocked, but I thought ‘maybe they were close rounds.’ When you’re in a fight, you feel like one punch could ruin a round.” When Maverick went back to her room and watched the bout, however, she saw “such a differentiation in round one and two that I was mad to say the least. Very disappointed in the judging, but also just disappointed in general. I really was upset about it, and went back into the gym with that same ferocity and carrying that passion with me.”
Maverick made the move to Colorado ahead of this fight, which was somewhat out of the blue, though the flyweight had done some training there. “I had trained in Colorado in the past a few times. I had went up there for Tecia Torres a couple times to train with her for fight camps, I’d went out there when I was younger, like 19 and 20, to train for a few weeks at a time, and I just like the environment up there, and the training partners are so high calibre along with the coaches and the gyms that it was really just the logical choice to make.”
Logical it may be, but Maverick and her husband looked at apartments and houses online, and made the decision to move without actually going to Colorado together. That said, Colorado is closer to home — Missouri — than other possible destinations, like ATT in Florida.
Now working with some big names at Elevation Fight Team in Denver, Maverick believes she’s ready to show her best self at UFC 269. “This is the best me. I’ve never trained at a camp in terms of having a lot of high-level MMA fighters around me,” she revealed. “My last fight camps, where you guys have seen me improve fight after fight, right, especially my striking, was at a gym that focused on Muay Thai and focused on jiu-jitsu. I didn’t have MMA training partners, I didn’t have a cage to work in, I barely even did MMA sparring rounds.”
That’s in stark contrast to how she is training now. “We did Muay Thai sparring rounds. And now I’m here, I’m at a gym where every single day I’m doing MMA rounds, every single day I have on MMA gloves, not boxing gloves or shin guards and stuff like that. I’m literally simulating fights every single day, and I think it’s going to definitely show with everything being put together in my fight, no hesitations, no questioning when I do takedowns. I’m just going to be very confident in everything.”
Watch our full interview with UFC 269’s Miranda Maverick above. The event takes place this Saturday, December 11 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, NV.
