Jessica Eye sees opportunity in UFC Fight Night 172 main event

Las Vegan Jessica Eye hadn’t even heard the name of the proposed opponent before she quickly accepted the opportunity to fight on Saturday night’s card at the UFC Apex facility.

She was too excited by the chance to compete, and to a lesser degree, just get out of the house.

“I had just been training so hard through the pandemic,” Eye said during Thursday’s virtual media day for her UFC Fight Night 172 headliner against Cynthia Calvillo. “I just wanted to showcase how hard we’ve been working. … I am eager to get in this cage. I have to keep myself calm because I want to lay some hands.”

Eye was so eager to return to competition that she had already agreed to a grappling match for June 21, an event she still plans to compete in provided she gets through Saturday’s fight healthy.

“This is my athletic season and I’m ready to compete,” the 33-year-old said.

That begins with Saturday night when Eye, the No. 1 contender in the women’s flyweight division, will headline a UFC card for the first time in her career.

That was another big part of the appeal of accepting the bout on just three weeks’ notice.

“I just said, ‘Main event? Yes. Who is it?’” Eye lsaid with a laugh about the phone call from her manager. “I just think it’s awesome that we have two weeks in a row where women are main-eventing. It’s such an evolution in the world. Women are just as much of a draw as the men and I think it’s just cool. There’s not these moments where people are like, ‘I’m not going to watch it because girls are on the card.’ It’s actually becoming, ‘Oh, I am watching because there are girls on the card.’”

It’s not the biggest fight of Eye’s career despite the lofty spot on the card. She challenged Valentina Shevchenko for the UFC belt in June 2019, losing the fight when she was knocked out by a head kick early in the second round.

She bounced back with a decision win over Viviane Araujo in December and looks to climb back in the title picture with a win over Calvillo, who is coming up from strawweight to make her flyweight debut.

The setback against Shevchenko, Eye’s only loss in five fights since dropping from bantamweight, isn’t something that weighs on her mind.

She’s been through far worse. Eye has been vocal about being raised by an abusive single father, who died in 2016. A loss in a title fight was never going to be a difficult obstacle fpr her to overcome.

She looked just fine in her win in December and will now have the benefit of continuing her career with an elbow that was surgically repaired in February.

Eye moved to Las Vegas looking for a fresh start last year, making a break from the only gym she had known in Ohio just months before the title bout.

Some of her friends from back home have come to visit her this week, but she is isolated from them due to the enhanced coronavirus protocols in place for the event.

“The Apex is about two streets away from my house and all my friends are there right now,” she said. “I just can’t wait to go home, eat some food, hang out and then get right back into training on Monday to get ready for Submission Underground. I just want to keep the momentum going.”

She’ll have to get through Calvillo first.

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.