Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream the UFC live on your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the ESPN app. Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight Jessica Eye was unsurprisingly outspoken about her opportunity as a headliner as well as what it took to get there.
As of June 5, Eye has competed as a pro in MMA for 10 years. She joined the UFC in 2013, and earned a split decision over Sarah Kaufman that was later overturned to a no-contest when Eye failed a post-fight drug test for marijuana. In her 13th outing with the Las Vegas-based promotion, Eye will be serving as the headliner of an ESPN card. When she received the call to serve in the marquis billing of a fight card, she was taken aback.
“I didn’t even hear the matchup when they talked to me,” Eye explained at UFC on ESPN 10’s Virtual Media Day. ”’Main event, hell yeah, who is it,’” she asked her manager. When her manager told her the name, Cynthia Calvillo, it did not even register. “’Main event, hell yeah, who is it,” she asked a second time. The opponent was not nearly as important as the opportunity.
Eye has not competed since December, where she captured a decision over Viviane Araujo at UFC 245. Since then, she has been chomping at the bit to get back into active competition.
“I was so sick of being in the house,” she told reporters, before explaining that she wore her “pretty clothes” because she had wanted to express herself and show off her hard work the last several months. The booking did not come easy, and she needed to hound matchmaker Mick Maynard to get something put together.
“[I was] In shape, working my butt off. I asked Mick [Maynard] a couple times a day. ‘Mick, answer me’,” she pleaded to the matchmaker. At the time, the flyweight was “itching to get back to something…some kind of competition.” Eye was not expecting to be back in active MMA competition at this exact time, as she will be appearing at grappling event Submission Underground 15 the following weekend.
“As soon as I got the announcement, I was like, ‘We’re doing both’,” she exclaimed.
Her career, which has seen her win five and drop six inside the Octagon along with the aforementioned no-contest, has seen its fair share of ups and downs. With her relative success of late, she has still received her fair share of critics, especially on social media. They don’t bother her anymore.
“There’s a crazy thing that social media has and it’s called a block button,” she said with a laugh. “It’s not there if I don’t see it. It’s one of those things for me it took me so long, I remember going through things like when I failed for the drug test and I felt like everybody knew things about me.”
Some fighters live on social media, and others wield or manipulate it to gain attention, whether for altruistic reasons or for multiple nonserious retirement announcements. Eye is not one of those people.
“I just tried to be somebody on social media that maybe I wasn’t,” she explained. As for individuals criticizing her, it falls on deaf ears now. “[They’re] just not real to me – it just doesn’t register in my brain anymore that this person’s real. Even if this person is in front of me, he’s not going to say that. I just — it doesn’t seem real, it’s not real. Unless I’ve actually known you or seen you or put a face behind that voice, it just doesn’t matter to me.”
As someone who has faced criticism for much of her UFC career, starting from her very first appearance on the UFC stage — although Eye did compete and win on three Bellator MMA shows before joining the UFC — she has grown past it now.
“If someone says something on social media and they’re just a little emoji face, are you just going to get offended by that,” she posited. “I bet you wouldn’t say that to my face. These are just emotions people are trying to fake and say for attention. I’m [more] worried about myself.”
As a fighter that has endured multiple defeats, including a recent crushing head kick knockout against champ Valentina Shevchenko in June 2019, the Ohio native never lets it get her down.
“Fighting and training isn’t the hardest thing I’ve experienced in my life,” she admitted. “Let alone at the age of 33 I’m wiser and calmer about the things I do. That loss [to Shevchenko] was not the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do. Saying goodbye to my father was harder…saying I forgive you for things longer than my fight career…losing friends to drug overdose and to violence in the streets from riots.” Eye continued, “Losing is not the hardest thing I’m gonna do. So for me, why should I give it more than it is.”
Losing was not on her mind, but instead victory over a top-ranked strawweight in Calvillo moving up to her weight class. Should she come out with her hand raised, she wants to do one thing more than anything, and that includes going on commentator Joe Rogan’s podcast — Eye called out actor/comedian Michael Rapaport to bring her on to his show. Eye wants to see her dogs.
“I get to go home to my dogs which is my favorite things in the world,” she said excitedly. “If my dogs could be cageside it would just melt my heart. I probably sound so crazy…they have been the best thing in my life.”
UFC on ESPN 10 takes place on June 13 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The event will be headlined by a women’s flyweight tilt between Eye and Calvillo. The co-main event sees Marvin Vettori take on Karl Roberson at middleweight.