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The former strawweight explains why she was so angry her opponent missed weight, even though she only appeared to come in .25 lbs over the limit.
Fighters might be taking more cues from Daniel Cormier during the UFC’s run of crowdless events, but Cynthia Calvillo sounds like she feels her opponent Jessica Eye took her emulation of the former light heavyweight and heavyweight champ a step too far. Calvillo defeated Eye in the 5-round main event of the UFC’s latest show at their Las Vegas Apex facility. Afterward she spoke to reporters about the extra layer of animosity she felt heading into the fight.
Namely, Eye appeared to miss weight for the flyweight bout by .25 lbs (officially coming it at 126.25 lbs for the 125 lb bout—with a 1 lb allowance). However, Calvillo has it on good authority that Eye was actually much heavier than that when she stepped on the scale. Calvillo believes that Eye used the towel trick, and grabbed on to the hoop surrounding her as she weighed in (transcript via MMA Fighting).
“I knew she was going to be huge,” Calvillo told reporters after her win on Saturday. “She had missed weight, and to be honest, she didn’t miss weight by .2 – she actually missed weight by a lot more, but she held on to the towel when she got on the scale.”
Video from the weigh-ins doesn’t appear to show any unusual movement or force exerted by Eye on the towel. But, then again the whole idea of the towel is to keep Eye obscured from view.
Jessica Eye misses weight (126.25) ahead of #UFCVegas2 main event fight with Cynthia Calvillo.
Watch full video: https://t.co/n9PQHBolw4 pic.twitter.com/2kjqqqlE1w
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) June 12, 2020
Calvillo’s best piece of evidence is a message she says her manager recieved from Eye’s coaching staff, telling them their fighter wasn’t going to make weight.
“I know this because we received a text message from her coach letting us know she was going to miss weight by 3.5 pounds, not .2. But when she showed up, she held the towel and got away with it. That’s why she was so proud after she weighed in, and so happy. She’s like, ‘Oh, I only missed by .2 pounds’ – no. So she went into this fight a lot heavier than I did. So not only did I move up a weight class, I got somebody that was a bantamweight, not fighting as a flyweight.”
Calvillo added that if it was really just .25 lbs that Eye had to lose, she could have cut her hair or found some other way to make the weight. And while she says she’s not holding on to any animosity toward her opponent, now that the fight is in the books, the whole experience added an extra layer of fight night motivation.
“It’s not the first time a fighter has done that, hold on to the towel or try to take pounds off the scale,” she said. “But go about it, just suck it up and be quiet and show up the next day. But the simple fact that right after she weighed in and was all happy, and I knew it was all bullsh*t. I knew I was going to show her up the next day.”
Calvillo’s win over Eye rockets her to the top of the pack among flyweight contenders. She’s currently unbeaten in her last four bouts, including a majority draw to Marina Rodriguez (in which Calvillo missed weight by nearly 5 lbs). To date, she’s only tasted defeat once in the Octagon, a 2017 loss to Carla Esparza.
Joanne Calderwood is currently on deck to fight champion Valentina Shevchenko, but with another win under her belt, Calvillo may find herself with her own opportunity to claim UFC gold in the not too distant future.