As a relatively recent guest on Bare Knuckle Bowker, Jessica Eye expounded upon her first win in gloveless combat at BKFC Texas and how she came to return to combat sports after her UFC retirement a few years ago. When initially asked if everything in this bare-knuckle debut played out relative to her preconceived notions or if there were some surprising facets from her BKFC 76 effort, Jessica Eye said,
"A little bit of both but the hand wraps are wild. It's so wild, it's like nothing [laughs]. Gee [Perez], their cut guy, is great, he's absolutely awesome and he does a great job. But I can't wait to perfect that wrap. It's kind of cool but it was basically nothing. That was what I expected, so I kept my hands super closed most of the fight. Most of it. I only had my hand open the one time [laughs]. I don't know. Did you see it in the fight? Did you see when I slapped her?... I didn't even mean to. Didn't even mean to happen. Didn't even know that I guess you're allowed to slap on some level."
When playfully asked if that was Eye's way of putting out feelers to Power Slap, Eye stated,
"Not even close. Somebody slap me, I might have a problem with it. But no, I was trying to parry punches and I didn't get my hand closed in time [laughs]. But so no, it was not on purpose but it was hilarious. Listening to Chris Lytle say that I Stockton slapped her hilarious."
Jessica Eye's unexpected return to combat sports after a three year hiatus
Jessica Eye is a former UFC flyweight title challenger who seemed content to ride off into the sunset after a loss to Maycee Barber amid some serious health issues that caused a shift toward some meaningful life changes for Eye. When expounding upon the specifics of her timeline in the last few years that has seen her personally surprising return to competitive combat sports, Eye quipped,
"Oh my god, yeah. In three years like so much has happened. I mean, I think that ultimately it was really downplayed how sick I was from the parasite, right. Like I got the parasite in 2018 when I fought in Singapore. I retired in 2022, like a month and a half before I retired and had my last fight against Maycee [Barber], the parasite had just come out. My life, my body needed to heal. There was so many things that have happened since then. Mental healing, physical healing, I moved to Florida, I created a team that was really, really unique to me that I really have been so fortunate that I did that."
"Coming back was never an option, it just kind of happened. I had gotten the call, it seemed like the right thing to do. I wanted to try it and Mariya [Agapova] was good. I think Mariya is going to be really successful in bare-knuckle herself too. I don't think people are ready for even her kind of experience. I mean, there's still a short number of UFC girls over in the bare-knuckle world."
