UFC 238’s Jessica Eye Using ‘Mental Tactics’ On Valentina Shevchenko
Women’s flyweight contender Jessica Eye admits she is “poking the bear” with her recent interactions with Valentina Shevchenko.
Eye is on a three-fight winning streak and will get her first chance to become a champion when she challenges Shevchenko in the co-main event of UFC 238 on June 8.
Recently she took aim at “The Bullet” by claiming the champion sped up her training footage to look more impressive.
Shevchenko would retort back soon after.
The two have since met at the UFC Performance Institute and Shevchenko claims things are cordial.
However, Eye believes she has annoyed the champion and feels using mental warfare is completely normal when two people are about to fight.
“I feel like I have annoyed her so much, but most things are going to be taken out of context,” Eye told reporters on Friday (via MMA Junkie). “I could say that’s stupid and the way you put the image out there, they’re going to be like, ‘She is such a terrible person. She’s a bully. She picks on people.’ I don’t know if she really sped up the video. It looks sped up, not going to lie. I know that other people have done it. Maybe they haven’t. But by saying it it annoyed a bunch of people and got things going.
“The cars were going super fast, and I know other people have done that. And I don’t blame her. Why not? Why not throw a little bit of mental tactics in there. What do you think I did to say something to her? Me and her aren’t being rude to each other. But there needs to be some kind of poking of the bear here. Two people are about to fight.”
Whether Eye’s mental tactics will have an effect in her title fight in Chicago remains to be seen.
