UFC Tampa flyweight Miranda Maverick has a big change coming up, and it has little to do with fighting.
While set to appear at UFC Tampa this Saturday, the final event of the promotion’s 2024 calendar year, Maverick (14-5) is also planning to grow her family. Specifically, her and her husband have begun the process to adopt; matching with a new son or daughter could come soon after the fight.
That’s one more thing for Miranda “Fear the” Maverick to be excited for, along with her pickle business, Prowler Pickles, honey business High Stakes Honey, and of course, her fighting career.
“I’ve been wanting a kid for a while. My husband and I are at a space where we want children. And right now among other reasons, it’s just not feasible with my career of course,” Maverick told Cageside Press in a recent interview, outlining the couple’s thought process when it comes to adoption.
“We’ve always wanted to adopt. We’ve talked about it since the first date pretty much, it was mentioned. We discussed it then and we’ve discussed it now. It’s been a long and scary and expensive journey, but we’re finally to the point where we will start matching, probably the day after the fight. Wait until that fight stress is over with. Even though we won’t know when a baby will be put in our arms, it could take up to a year kind of thing, we’re hoping it’s sooner rather than later, and the fight won’t interfere with it. But the baby at that point would become first priority.”
Initially, the Maverick and her husband were hoping to have their own children first. That, of course, would mean taking time out of her fighting career. And, she went on to point out, it really shouldn’t matter.
“We wanted our own children first, and it was one of those things where we were like ‘well we want our first shot at parenthood to be our own blood, our own genetics.’ And then we were discussing it and I was like ‘well then why are we adopting to begin with?’ Like if we think we’re going to treat them different or feel different towards them as parents and stuff.”
With that in mind, Maverick instead opted to take a more spiritual approach, her thinking being the Jesus adopted his followers, so “we should adopt here on Earth whenever we can.”
“We just want to have a better life for this child than maybe it would have had, and we’ll treat it just as if it was our own blood and our own genetics. And we’re very excited.”
Motherhood will no doubt, at some point, bring about a conversation about what mommy does for a living. Fighting in a cage isn’t your normal 9 to 5, drive a desk, punch a clock sort of job. In fact a clock is most certainly not what Maverick is punching when it comes to her career.
That said, she has no qualms about introducing her children to her fighting life when the time comes. “Listen, it’s a lot easier than explaining why I’m on Only Fans with my butt hanging out, which is what a lot of women out there do. For me, the fighting, I’ll explain to them that it is a sport, but I’ll also explain God’s abilities that he gives people, whatever potential I had out there, and how it came into being with MMA.”
“And on top of that,” Maverick continued, “how the sport works. I never got hurt too bad, explain to them the injuries that do come, the mental toughness it gives you, the adversity that you face in life and how life’s going to knock you down no matter what career path you choose. No matter who you are, or what you’re doing in life. And that they’re going to have to get past that too one day, and hopefully they can understand that they can be strong and tough and kind of go after whatever they think they can in life.”
Before the adoption goes through, Miranda Maverick has a fight with Canadian flyweight Jamey-Lyn Horth to take care of. Neither fighter is ranked at the moment, though Maverick has been in the past. Horth is coming off a win in Edmonton just last month, and was willing to fight on short notice, which is why the fight was put together.
Things between the two have been “very nice, cordial for now, in the cage obviously will be different,” noted Maverick, revealing that the pair exchanged pleasantries over social media. “I think as far as her skill set, I’m better in all areas. Obviously anybody is going to say that I would hope in interviews and stuff, I hope they have that confidence. But I think I’m almost ranked for a reason, and have been ranked for a reason. And in my own mind, I’m in the top eight as far as my skill level and all that, I just haven’t had a chance to climb to that point yet.”
Watch our full interview with UFC Tampa’s Miranda Maverick above.
