The Film Room: Jessica Eye

The ordering process for Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-views has changed: UFC 238 is only available on ESPN+ in the U.S.

Jessica Eye will step inside the Octagon for the most important opportunity of her career when she challenges Valentina Shevchenko for the undisputed Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s flyweight title in the UFC 238 co-main event on Saturday in Chicago. Eye withstood a horrendous start in the UFC -- she went 1-5-1 in her first seven appearances -- and now finds herself on a three-fight winning streak. Can she shock the world?

The 32-year-old Ohio native supplies the material for this edition of The Film Room.



If you watch her early UFC fights, you can see that Eye brings more to the table than her record might indicate. Some of those bouts could have gone either way. On the lead, Eye is a high-volume striker who constantly pushes the pace to initiate exchanges in the pocket. She usually throws simple 1-2s down the middle and pairs them with some wild hooks to the head, and more often than not, she ends her combos with a kick to the body. Her footwork can be sloppy during these long combinations and she leaves herself open to being hit, but they also provide her main source of success on the feet.



Routinely throwing the same combo makes you predictable and easy to read. Against Katlyn Chookagian, Eye kept coming forward with the same wild hooks to the head topped off with a body kick. Chookagian managed to anticipate her attacks and circle away rather easily.



Eye has shown she can work from the outside and come forward with quick combos before resetting, but she does not do so nearly enough. When she fights patient, her timing and setups are good enough to land her right hand down the middle, and her combos are simple but effective. However, she is far too predictable and needs to learn to mix up her strikes and throw kicks from head to toe, not just to the body.



Eye is also an adept counterstriker, even though she does not get the opportunities often. She mixes in precision counters with full-fledged counter combos, which makes her less predictable. However, the punches she throws are the same: 1-2 down the middle, wild hooks to the head and maybe an occasional overhand right. Even with the predictable combos, her timing and ability to read her opponents and know what is coming next has been enough to land her leading and counter attacks.



Eye is rather good on the defensive end, but she still has some holes in her striking that have been exploited in the past. Bethe Correia managed to land some clean overhand rights over the top of Eye’s outstretched lead hand, and remember, her predictable leading combos make it easier to counter her. She also has the tendency to stretch out both hands when the opponent is coming forward, which leaves her open for more strikes over the top.



Eye is one of the better strikers in the division, but her grappling remains a glaring weakness. She has been dominated on the ground in the past and only defends a below-average 60 percent of takedowns. Shevchenko is also mainly a striker, but she has won fights on the ground in the past, so do not be surprised if she tries to go that route.