Cleveland native Jessica “Evil” Eye is a student of the mixed martial arts game and has focused on learning from the miscues that led to her knockout loss against “Bullet” Valentina Shevchenko in the UFC women’s flyweight title fight at UFC 238 at the United Center in Chicago last Saturday night.
Eye shared her positive outlook in an Instagram post Thursday.
“When renewing our hearts, we must be gentle with ourselves, after all, no one is perfect” Eye wrote. “At the same time, to really make positive changes, we must be honest, so we can avoid repeating mistakes.”
Eye’s three-fight winning streak came to a definitive end at the hands, and more accurately, the left leg of Shevchenko in the co-main event on the card.
After surviving two takedowns, spending nearly four minutes under Shevchenko’s control on the ground and withstood a crucifix submission attempt in the final 30 seconds of the first round, Eye continued to advance toward the defending champion, but had no answer for the left roundhouse kick.
By setting up Eye with intense body kicks, Shevchenko landed a left leg kick to the right side of her opponent’s head for the finish. Shevchenko won the UFC flyweight bout by knockout in the first minute of the second round.
Earlier this week, Eye thanked the fans for their support in a short video shared to her Instagram page.
“Thank you for reaching out and supporting me,” Eye said. “Yes, I’m okay, and I want to give a huge congratulations to ‘Bullet.’ Great job. Incredible head kick. Definitely did not see it coming and it definitely put me out.
“I want to give a huge shout-out to the UFC and everyone who helped me make this fight possible, and we’ll see what’s next for the “Evil” Eye.”
With her first-ever knockout loss, Eye fell to 14-7 with one no contest in her 10-year professional MMA career, and suffered only her second-ever setback at flyweight. Now, Eye is 10-2 at 125 pounds.
Shevchenko won the vacant UFC women’s flyweight championship with a victory over former strawweight titlist Joanna Jedrzejczyk back in December. The Kyrgyzstan native is 17-3 in her career and 6-2 since joining the UFC. Her only setbacks in the UFC came against current two-class champion Amanda Nunes.
