UFC 230: Sijara Eubanks misses weight, but still feels good for bout vs. Roxanne Modafferi

Sijara Eubanks felt good about the bout, even though it wasn’t the one she wanted.

Eubanks isn’t fighting for the vacant UFC flyweight belt against Valentina Shevchenko, as she originally expected, at UFC 230. Instead she faces Roxanne Modafferi in a non-title match, but she said at Thursday’s media day that she had only good feelings entering her Madison Square Garden debut.

After Friday’s official weigh-ins, Eubanks should be thankful this wasn’t a title fight.

The former title challenger made her case for the next flyweight title shot a bit tougher, coming in at 127.2 pounds Friday morning, 1.2 pounds more than the one-pound allowance for the 125-pound division. Had she been fighting for the title, she would have been more than two pounds over championship weight and been ineligible to receive the belt if she won.

Speaking at media day, Eubanks said she felt a big performance against Modafferi would put her where she wanted to be.

“Obviously, I want to fight for the title, my goal is to be the champion, but we’re going to keep working, keep grinding, keep winning until I get there,” Eubanks said. “I’m happy about this fight. I think it’s a good matchup and I’m looking forward to it.”

The women still are scheduled to meet on Saturday, although Eubanks will lose 20 percent of her purse to Modafferi for missing weight.

After her first UFC victory in July, Modafferi said Thursday she was thankful to get the call when Eubanks-Shevchenko was replaced by Daniel Cormier vs. Derrick Lewis as the main event at UFC 230.

“I was so excited to get the call to fight her, just to fight anybody in general. I kept telling the matchmaker, ‘I want to fight, I want to fight, anybody’s fine.’ I started calling people out on Twitter just to have somebody,” Modafferi said.

The fight is a rematch from an exhibition on the 26th season of “The Ultimate Fighter.” In that TUF semifinal bout, Eubanks won a three-round unanimous decision.

“I thought I was going to fight somebody else, but the call came for Sijara and I thought, ‘yes, rematch, I get to redeem myself.’ So, I’m excited.”

After watching the last fight back with her coach, Modafferi thinks this matchup will be fought similarly to the TUF fight with plenty of striking and a few takedown attempts from Eubanks, which she plans to stop.

“I had to mentally put away the emotions since I lost but my coach, John Wood, went back and watched the fight with me and helped me gameplan and add techniques to my toolbox that will enable me to smash this time,” Modafferi said.

Eubanks said the first fight played a big part in her planning during fight camp.

“We studied a lot of film, went through and saw what worked, what didn’t work, tried to make some improvements,” Eubanks said. “I think I’ve improved as a fighter exponentially since that last fight and I’m looking forward to checking off some new boxes.”