Reports: Maycee Barber Out of UFC 335 as Judice Fight Falls Apart

The UFC 335 card has taken another hit, and this one carries a familiar name. Maycee Barber is reportedly out of her December 12 fight against Carli Judice, according to reports that surfaced on Friday morning, with the reasons behind the withdrawal still undisclosed.

"Maycee Barber is out of her UFC 335 fight December 12th per sources against Carli Judice," read the post from MMA content creator Kevin K that first carried the news. Neither the UFC nor Barber's team has confirmed the report yet, and no reason has been given. But with a little over a month until the card at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, the promotion now faces an awkward choice: find Judice a new opponent in time, or scrap the bout altogether.

It would not be the first time a Barber fight has fallen apart late. The 28-year-old flyweight, ranked ninth in the division, has a well-documented history of withdrawals built around recurring medical problems, and the pattern has followed her through the biggest moments of her career.

Two years ago she was booked against Rose Namajunas in July 2024, a first main event in front of a home crowd, only to pull out for medical reasons. She later explained that she had spent nine days in hospital after her previous fight, developed pneumonia, and was found to have an Epstein-Barr virus infection alongside blood, gut and hormone abnormalities that left her unable to train at anything like full intensity. "God must have other plans in store for the future," she wrote at the time.

Then came May 31 last year, when she was due to headline against Erin Blanchfield. She made weight — half a pound over, which cost her 20 percent of her purse — and then pulled out minutes before the fight in dramatic backstage scenes. Reports afterwards said she had suffered seizures while warming up. Barber herself could barely explain what had happened. "We're not entirely sure what happened," she told ESPN's Brett Okamoto. "There was something that happened, and I don't exactly remember everything, but there was an event that happened in the back when I was warming up."

She did return. In December 2025 she outpaced Karine Silva by unanimous decision at UFC 323, her first win in more than a year, and the Judice fight was supposed to be her third outing of 2026. Judice, the rising prospect, had been favoured by the odds-makers heading in, and the bout was one of the more interesting fights on a card built around Alex Pereira's comeback.

Now Judice waits. The UFC has a track record of finding replacements at short notice, but the clock is already ticking, and the card has already lost one fight — the Joe Pyfer versus Bo Nickal bout was cancelled and rescheduled earlier in the build-up. If no replacement is found, Judice loses a fight date through no fault of her own, and Barber loses another chunk of momentum in a career that keeps being interrupted just as it gathers pace.

For now, the official silence leaves the story where it started: a report, a missing fighter, and a card that needs an answer.