Jessica Eye Claims Paige VanZant Called Dana White To Get Out Of Their Fight

In an interview with The MMA Hour (via MMA Fighting), Jessica Eye accused Paige VanZant of calling UFC President Dana White to get out of two different bouts with her. Eye will fight Kalindra Faria at UFC Fight Night 124, which happened after attempts for a bout with VanZant were called off (including at UFC 216). Eye’s comments happened after VanZant herself appeared on the program to talk about why the fight didn’t happen. Here are highlights:

VanZant on the cancelled fight with Eye: “I know that originally me and her were supposed to fight and that I ended up getting hurt, then they tried to get that fight matched up again, but at that point the UFC had moved on and they were trying to get me on the Australia card. They asked me when Anderson Silva ended up not being on the Shanghai card, they asked if I would take a last-minute fight. They asked me ten days or maybe two weeks before the fight if I would take a short-notice fight in Shanghai, so this whole time I thought I was going to be jumping in for a short-notice fight because I got ready really quickly and after my back healed I had this itch to get back in the cage right away.”

Eye on why the fight didn’t happen: “Because Paige called Dana and asked to get out of the fight. They were not gonna let her out of this fight and she – whatever bitch fit she threw, I signed that contract, I signed that one October 18 I think… I got the contract signed and returned it that day for that one. I have the other signed contract that we sent back for the other fight and for the other time. Listen, I’m not here saying that maybe two different things weren’t being said, but we all know that the UFC does not send contracts to people unless both parties agreed upon wanting the fight and said yes to everything. That went out and then it was like New York weekend (UFC 217) happened and all of a sudden she came home and realized, ‘Oh, wait a minute, Jessica is one of the best 125ers and she can kick my ass. So now I don’t want this fight, I would much rather go fight a girl that Bec (Rawlings) lost to,’ because she beat Bec. Which is fine. It’s totally fine but we’ve been trying to get myself a fight. I haven’t been in the cage, I’ve been begging for 125 and we revolved all of our decision making because Paige was being cooperative. And then one day I think I have a fight coming up, the next day I don’t. It’s not fair for her to do that.”

On media bias for VanZant: “There’s so many things that are going on and I think that sometimes with the media you guys pick up on the things Paige says because you’re right, she’s got other things to talk about, she’s doing some outside-of-the-cage stuff so everybody always seems to believe that person and not the other side. It’s like me and Valentina (Shevchenko), who are the best ‘25ers in the world, and that was before we even came to the UFC, so I feel like we’re both kind of getting shunted aside and not getting a chance and Paige is just getting all this time to talk.”