Miranda Maverick is stepping in on short notice to face Sabina Mazo at UFC Vegas 50 this Saturday.
After testing where her cardio was just over two weeks out from the fight, Maverick signed on the dotted line to replace Mandy Bohm. But prior to getting the call to face Mazo, Maverick was offered a different short-notice fight on the same card— against her own teammate.
“The funny part is, there were two flyweight fights, both had somebody drop out, and I got called to fight my own teammate first,” Maverick told Cageside Press in an exclusive interview recently. “So JJ [Aldrich] had her opponent fall out, and they’re like ‘you want to fight JJ?’ and my manager was like ‘that’s your teammate, right?'”
Maverick’s manager chalked it up to the UFC’s matchmakers getting confused. After all, she’d only recently moved out to Team Elevation in Colorado, where Aldrich also trains. “So that was funny, and there it was, maybe 12 hours later, I get the call about Sabina instead because Mandy had dropped out.”
Coming into UFC Vegas 50, Maverick will be looking to snap the first two-fight skid of her career. Her last fight, in particular, is something she’s looking to move past.
“I think it was my mindset more than anything. I’m not used to losing the first round of a fight ever, that I can think of,” Maverick explained. “And I think it was just going in there not expecting for her to take me down and hold me down for a whole round pretty much. After that, it was just a battle of self-defeating. Being like ‘aww that wasn’t supposed to happen, I’m losing, everybody saw I’m losing.’ Then I lost another round, like ‘oh no.’
That said, Maverick doesn’t want to take anything away from Erin Blanchfield, who came out victorious in the fight. “But I do think I had an off night in terms of, just letting myself start a downward spiral, and wasn’t able to capitalize on anything because I was stuck on bottom. It’s one thing to bite down on the mouthpiece and just keep swinging when you’re tired, it’s another to just be on bottom, and just be like ‘what do I do, other than survive right now?'”
Against Mazo, Maverick finds a fellow fighter who has stumbled lately, and who might be under some extra pressure.
“I would say she is,” Maverick agreed. “I’m on a two-fight losing streak just like she is, and I get it. It’s one of those scary moments of, ‘Am I going to get cut? Am I going to have a bad future ahead of me? Am I going to go lower from this? And it’s almost interesting to me that she took the fight, to be honest. Because if I was her, I’d be thinking it was a risky move.”
Miranda Maverick faces Sabina Mazo this Saturday, March 12, 2022 at the Apex in Las Vegas. Be sure to check out our full chat with Miranda above!
