Following a start to her career that saw her win eight combined fights as an amateur and a professional, women’s 125-pound up-and-comer Jessica “Evil” Eye suffered the first loss of her career, losing to Aisling Daly just over a year ago.
The loss made Eye reassess her training and game as a whole. And since then she’s rebounded with a four-fight winning streak.
“Obviously, the loss to Aisling was a huge devastation to me, so I wanted to change everything and come back with a lot of power and skillsets so that I could show people that one loss doesn’t say anything about who I am,” said Eye.
“I feel like I’ve grown up in the cage and grown up as a person. Now I’m going to take everything I’ve learned in life and take it into the cage and eventually use it. It’s one thing going into a fight knowing how to do something, but to do it under pressure and when you actually need it, that’s hard, but I’ve learned how to do it.”
As happy as she is with the changes she’s made, Eye told MMAWeekly.com that there’s still one area where she’d like to make more improvement.
“I’d like to see more finishes than what I’ve had,” she said. “I think that going to decision, a lot people don’t give you quite the respect, because they look at it as if you’re points-winning, you’re not really fighting because you’re not knocking people out or submitting them.”
Eye’s next opportunity to showcase her growth will come on Friday night when she returns to the NAAFS to headline Rock-N-Rumble 6 in Cleveland against up-and-comer Angela Magana.
“She probably sees me as a striker and not much of a wrestler or a grappler and that excites me,” said Eye of Magana.
“In my past four fights, people have seen me as a striker, showing my Muay Thai, my kickboxing and cage control, but not a lot of my ground game. A lot of people are basing my ground game off my loss to Aisling and it’s unfair. I’ve taken my submission game (to a new level) and am really bringing it to this fight.”
Eye feels this fight has the potential to be explosive because she has something to prove.
“I think this time we’ll actually see a knockout,” she said. “I know I’ve been saying it, but at some point it’s going to happen and at some point I’m going to do it. I haven’t been a main event in the NAAFS since I lost, so I’m ready to go back there and redeem that from five fights ago.”
Having finally gained some national exposure in Bellator, Eye is eager to return to the promotion and be a big part of their launching on a new network in 2013.
“I’ve been extremely happy with Bellator and everything they’ve done for me and all the help they’ve given me,” said Eye. “I’ve decided to sign a two-year agreement with them and they’ve talked about having me back when they move to Spike in January.
“I would imagine that after this fight I’m really going to take some time to get ready for what Bellator has planned and the tournaments they have coming up.”
(Photo courtesy of Bellator.com)
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