It wasn’t just the fact that Miranda Maverick lost her fight against Jasmine Jasudavicius at UFC 289 in June, but how she lost that troubled her.
As is well-known by now, “Fear the” Maverick (11-5) suffered vision issues in the fight, something she explained in greater detail in a recent interview with Cageside Press.
“I actually went blind basically the second round. I had retina surgeries in the past, two of them, and I was very afraid that I had torn my retina again,” explained Maverick, a former Invicta FC standout that saw a two-fight win streak snapped in the loss.
“The last two rounds were basically me in survival mode, fighting, just trying to survive. It was a very poor performance, yeah I toughed through it and made it to the end of the fight, but that’s never my goal,” Maverick continued. “I honestly do believe that I have way more skill, way more strength, way more everything than I showed. It was, right as I took that shot in the second round, things started going really blurry in my left eye. And by the third round, I couldn’t see at all through it. It was like a grey cloud, basically just turned black.”
That sapped Maverick’s confidence and left her worried more about the eye than the fight. “She did a really good job capitalizing on my hesitations.”
Maverick is hoping for a better outcome this Saturday in Salt Lake City. Making a short turnaround, Maverick is stepping up at UFC 291 against Priscila Cachoeira. And the eye is something she’s been paying extra attention to. “I’ve been healing my eye, I’m taking drops for them to make them a little bit stronger and give them some strength back there by my optic never, and to help heal them up.”
Still, the chance to bounce back, return to the win column, and regain momentum was too much for her to pass up the short-notice fight.
“It was a good opportunity, I got asked if I wanted to take it and it’s kind of hard to say no to a paycheck and a good match-up,” explained Maverick. “I love short-notice fights. It’s that much less time of me being miserable and weight cut, and staying in fight mode.”
Maverick, who replaced Joanne Wood in the fight, added “also I feel the caliber of opponent is one that’s not— she’s not very skilled I don’t think. I think that her striking is good in terms of power, and I think that’s most of what you have to look out for.”
The 26-year old flyweight has no intention of absorbing much of that power, of course.
“She’s powerful enough that she can get away with sloppy other things. And I plan on moving my feet plenty to get out of the way of her range,” said Maverick. “I think she’s slow, as far as her striking goes, it’s just when it does connect, man you’ve got to watch out. You’ve got to watch where you’re going. She’s trying to bully you into the cage and get you to where you can’t get out without making a mistake yourself.”
Beyond that, “I don’t think she has a very good ground game,” Maverick suggested — and that is another area where she could capitalize. “She was getting ready to fight JoJo, who has shown a lot of striking as well. I think it would have ended up a battle of two, three rounds possibly of just striking. And for me, obviously I have the grappling background, and I think she’s going to have to deal with that a lot in this fight. And I’m confident in myself going into it.”
Watch our full interview with UFC 291 flyweight Miranda Maverick above.
