“Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth.”
Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson famously uttered those words during his career, but the opposite proved to be true for Cleveland-based mixed martial artist Jessica Eye in a featured preliminary bout at UFC Fight Night: St. Louis in the Scottrade Center Sunday night.
Within the first minute of Eye’s return to the Ultimate Fighting Championship after a 17-month hiatus, she was on the receiving end of a head kick from Kalindra Faria that appeared to stun the veteran fighter. However, that served to “wake her up” so to speak and spurred a recovery which resulted in a split-decision win.
“You get in there sometimes and you’re so focused on it, and I think that’s what happened again,” Eye said. “What we said not to do is just let her set up, just like any fight, and again, I sat back, got hit, and was like, ‘Oh, (shoot). I got hit. Time to turn it on,’ and maybe that’s what I need. Sometimes, you’ve got to get hit to light the fire.”
The head kick from Faria reminded Eye of a previous bout against Carina Damm in June of 2013.
“We had a fellow opponent in common named Carina Damm, who also head-kicked me one time in a fight,” Eye recalled with a laugh.
“It was an outside arena, and I thought a bird flew in and hit me, so in-between rounds, I go, ‘Marcus, a bird just came in, flew and hit me.’ He said, ‘There was no bird, Jess. That was her foot.’ I was like, ‘Wait a minute.’”
According to FightMetric, Eye outpointed Faria, 53-52, in total strikes, but Faria had a 38-25 edge in significant strikes. However, Eye more than made up the difference with three successful takedowns in four attempts and six tries at a submission.
Faria scored only one takedown and attempted just one submission in the 15-minute fight.
“I knew that she had gotten a couple hits in there, but let’s face it, there’s more than just striking that wins fights. I felt like that was the point when I should do some submission attempts,” Eye said. “I needed to use my wrestling, which I worked so much on in the last year-and-a-half.”
Prior to the win over Faria, Eye lost four straight bouts.
After starting her career with a 10-1 record, Eye lost five of her seven fights in the UFC with one no contest, but all of the bouts under the banner of the world’s premiere MMA organization ahead of Sunday’s win over Faria were at bantamweight.
Eye’s preferred weight class is flyweight, which has a newly created division within the UFC.
“I don’t feel like there was ring rust, but the jitteriness of being in there was a little bit different,” Eye said. “It’s been probably 16, 17 months since I was in there and at flyweight, I’m overwhelmed with feeling right now. I don’t know whether to cry, be happy.”
