Las Vegas, NV — Sijara Eubanks knew she was going back to the weight class where she started her career in UFC at.
“SarJ” picked up her first finish in the octagon at UFC Vegas 32 on Saturday when she smashed Elise Reed to pick up a first-round TKO. The win over Reed snapped Eubanks two-fight losing streak, and likely saved her job.
This marked Eubanks’ first fight in the flyweight division since her UFC debut against Lauren Murphy, where she picked up a unanimous decision win. She also fought three times at flyweight on the 26th season of The Ultimate Fighter. After her win over Murphy, she missed weight in her next fight and spent six fights in the bantamweight division.
During her post-fight interview, she revealed to Cageside Press and other reporters that the decision to move back to flyweight was made last year.
“Let me tell ya’ll something; I’ve been working on this weight class since the beginning of the year. I knew about halfway through my year last year; I think around the Julia Avila fight, I was like, ‘I think these girls are two big,'” Eubanks said. “And so I was already mentally preparing myself to go back down. It was a lot of: Can I do it? Should I do it? Is it healthy? You know, it was a lot of that. Once I got over that and started eating clean without a fight signed- I started losing weight with no fight signed. When I started seeing my body coming down, and I felt the way I felt during practice and felt the way mentally, I was sleeping better — I was like, yeah, this is the division for me.”
Eubanks said that the weight cut for Reed was one of the smoothest cuts of her career, which is a big positive for someone who has had trouble in the past.
“SarJ” had a name ready to go for who she wants next.
“The name to me that makes the most sense right now that keeps coming up is probably Jessica Eye, because we had signed to fight before. We just never got there. So, that is the first one that makes sense,” Eubanks said.
Watch the full UFC Vegas 32 post-fight press conference with Sijara Eubanks above.
