Miranda Maverick wants to adopt, grow family after UFC Tampa

UFC Tampa flyweight Miranda Maverick has a big change coming, 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) also plans to grow his family. Specifically, she and her husband have started adopting; matching with a new son or daughter could come shortly after the match.

It’s another thing for Miranda “Fear the” Maverick to be excited about, along with her pickle business, Prowler Pickleshoney business High Stakes Honey, and of course her fighting career.

“I’ve wanted a child for a while. My husband and I are at a place where we want to have children. And right now, among other reasons, obviously it’s just not possible with my career,” Maverick told Cageside Press in a recent interview where he outlined 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 match. Wait until that battle stress is over. Although we don’t know when a baby will be placed in our arms, it could take up to a year, we hope it’s sooner rather than later, and the fight won’t interfere with that. But the baby at that point would become the first priority.”

Initially, Maverick and her husband hoped to have their own children first. Of course, that would mean that she took time out from her fighting career. And she went on to point out that it really shouldn’t matter.

“We wanted to have our own kids first, and it was one of those things where we thought, ‘Well, we want our first shot at parenthood to be our own blood, our own genetics.'” And so we discussed that, and I was like, ‘Well why do we adopt in the first place?’ Like if we think we’re going to treat them differently or feel differently about them as parents and stuff.”

With that in mind, Maverick instead chose to take a more spiritual approach, her mindset being that Jesus adopted his followers, so “we should adopt here on Earth when we can.”

“We just want a better life for this child than maybe it would have had, and we want to treat it like it’s our own blood and our own genetics. And we’re very excited.”

Motherhood will no doubt at some point lead to a conversation about what mom does for a living. Fighting in a cage is not your normal 9 to 5, run a desk, punch a clock kind of job. In fact, a watch is definitely not what Maverick beats when it comes to her career.

That said, she has no qualms about introducing her children to her fighting life when the time comes. “Look, it’s a lot easier than explaining why I’m on Only Fans with my ass hanging out, which is what a lot of women out there do. For me, the fights, I’ll explain to them that it’s a sport, but I also want to explain the abilities of God that He gives to people, whatever potential I had out there and how it came about with MMA.”

“And on top of that,” Maverick continued, “how the sport works. I never got hurt that bad, explain to them the injuries that come, the mental toughness it gives you, the adversity you face in life and how life is going to knock you down no matter what career path you choose. No matter who you are or what you do in life. And that they will have to get past it one day and hopefully they can understand that they can be strong and cool and like go after what they think they can do in life.”

Before the adoption goes through, Miranda Maverick has a fight with Canadian flyweight Jamey-Lyn Horth to deal with. Neither fighter is currently ranked, although Maverick has been in the past. Horth is coming off a win in Edmonton 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, obviously in the cage will be different,” Maverick noted, revealing the pair exchanged pleasantries over social media. “I think as far as her skills go, I’m better in all areas. Obviously someone will say I would hope in interviews and stuff like that, I hope they have that confidence. But I think I’m almost ranked for a reason, and I’ve been ranked for a reason. And in my own mind I’m in the top eight in terms of 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.