Maycee Barber and Montana De La Rosa fight Saturday in UFC Fight Night 205 at the UFC Apex. Barber enters this fight with a 9-2 record and has won 56 percent of her fights by knockout. De La Rosa enters this fight with a 12-6 record and has won 67 percent of her fights by submission.
Barber has won five of her last seven fights and is coming off a July win over Miranda Maverick. Barber is averaging 4.67 significant strikes per minute, with an accuracy percentage of 49 percent. Barber is averaging 1.36 takedowns with an accuracy percentage of 33 percent. Barber is coming off a split decision win at UFC on ESPN 27 where she landed 82 total strikes and produced one takedown. Barber snapped a string of back to back losses and has seen her last three fights go the distance. Barber is a young fighter who is approaching 24 years old who comes from a karate background and does some of her best work on her feet. Barber has five knockout victories, and she puts a lot into her strikes, mixing in punches, elbows and knees well. Barber is a stocky, powerful fighter who swings with intention and is a hell of an athlete. Barber also has some ground ability, and her first pro fight was actually a first round arm bar. This will be Barber’s fifth career fight in Nevada.
De La Rosa has won six of her last nine fights and is coming off a June win over Ariane Lipski. De La Rosa is averaging 2.87 significant strikes per minute, with an accuracy percentage of 37 percent. De La Rosa is averaging 2.25 takedowns with an accuracy percentage of 31 percent. De La Rosa is coming off a knockout win at UFC Fight Night 189 where she landed 66 total strikes and produced two takedowns. De La Rosa is now 5-2-1 under the UFC banner and looks for back-to-back wins for the first time since 2018-19. De La Rosa is most effective in the clinch or on the ground, as she comes from a wrestling background and is a brown belt in BJJ. De La Rosa now has one knockout win on her resume and eight of her wins have come by submission, with five of those coming via arm bar. De La Rosa wants to get her hands on her opponent and kind of muck things up with her wrestling and grappling. This will be De La Rosa’s sixth career fight in Nevada.
De La Rosa is the bigger fighter of the two and probably has the edge in the clinch or on the ground if it gets there. However, Barber is easily the more polished and comfortable striker, and she has some pop that can scare De La Rosa. Barber is also clearly the better athlete of the two, and we’ve seen De La Rosa struggle against the better athletes in the past. This may not be the sexiest or most entertaining fight on the card, but it’s one Barber should win.
You could argue Barber should be a bigger favorite than she is here. Give me Barber for the victory.