Interviews
MMATorch Interview: Bellator 83's Jessica Eye views Zoila Gurgel fight as "the kind of moment you wait for in MMA"
Dec 6, 2012 - 2:05:50 PM MMATorch Interview: Bellator 83's Jessica Eye views Zoila Gurgel fight as "the kind of moment you wait for in MMA"

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Friday night's Bellator 83 event will feature a prominent women's bout between Bellator 115 lb. Champion Zoila Gurgel and 8-1 pro Jessica Eye. The fight is first women's bout to make a main card in Bellator's seventh season, and provides both women with a chance to have a breakout fight.

For the 26-year-old Eye, fighting out of Cleveland, Ohio's Strong Style Fight Team, it's the type of fight she's been anticipating for some time, and she feels wholly prepared to take advantage of the opportunity.

"These are the kind of moments you wait for in MMA," Eye told MMATorch this week. "You wait for the moments where you can capitalize on fighting good people, big names, and being able to build something on it. So I'm very excited, I'm extremely prepared, and I'm ready to do the darn thing."

"I'm so excited about this fight. Look at Zoila, she's the Champion. I give her so much respect. I think she's a little stuck on not liking me, disrespect this, disrespect that, [dating back to an incident] I had with a teammate of hers a couple years ago at a grappling tournament... [But] I haven't been preparing specifically for Zoila. I have been but I haven't been, if that makes sense. I prepare for any fighter, I prepare for any moment. As a martial artist, I have to be ready to fight anybody, anytime, of any skill level."

Eye doesn't expect to be put off by the bright lights and exposure that come with the MTV2 slot, and thinks it's something fighters have to be prepared for if they want to progress in the sport.

"I'm not much of a star struck person, so the cameras and stuff don't really bother me, because it's a part of what we do. It's a part of what we're supposed to be able to handle. To be honest, stepping into the Bellator cage is a dream come true, so to at least be in the cage, whether on the undercard or the main card, I'm just so blessed and so happy that I'm excited for that."

"I'm excited for [Zoila], too. I know that she's coming back into her game and trying to get back on her feet, get back in MMA, and trying to get her name back out there. I think sometimes that she focused on, like her last fight, being so upset about being on the undercard, when she should have just been happy that her knee didn't stop her from getting into the cage at all again."

While the fight itself is a blessing to Eye, Friday will take on even more significance in her personal life. Raised by a single father, Eye didn't have any relationship with her mother due to a contentious split. But on Friday, her estranged mother will be in attendance, with Eye seeing her in person for the first time in seven years. It's a moment Eye is eagerly anticipating, and she's excited for the opportunity to show her mother the woman she's become, as well as where she's at in her professional career."

"My family split [when I was] at a very, very young age," Eye explained. "My dad was a single father. I didn't see my mother for the first time ever in my life until I was 16 years old. When I saw her I knew it wasn't going to be a good thing. I was so worried, her and my dad had such a treacherous divorce, such a bad split that it just wasn't good. At all. [But] I had a slight relationship with her; she's very sick, so she moved out of Ohio and up to Boston. I didn't get to be around her that much. She moved to Boston when I was 18, right after I graduated high school. I only got to see her once. It was my 19th birthday, because I drove to Canada to do the whole 19-year-old drinking thing, so we all drove up there. After I did that for my birthday weekend, we drove over to Boston where my mother was, and that was the last time that [I saw] her.

"Now I'm 26-years old, and this will be the first time - we didn't really talk much because of family problems we had," she continued. "I think for the first two years we didn't talk at all. Then I talked to her right before my Aisling Daly fight, and it wasn't really the kind of reunion to now where I appreciate my mother so much; she's very sick, and I just don't know how much time I have left with her."

"I'm just so scared that I'll never get to show her the woman that I am because of her. Not because of not having her in my life, but because that's my mother, and she's a part of me. So I'm very excited for her to come to her first fight. I'm very excited for her to be there, and to have her energy. To have both mom and dad in the same room and to not have it be about them, but to be about me, and my success."

Catch Bellator 83 live on MTV2 Friday night, or right here at MMATorch.com with our weekly live stream provided by Spike TV