WATCH: Lionhearted fighter reacts furiously to referee stoppage for nasty eye injury

Nobody was questioning Brooke Mayo's heart after her Bellator debut on Saturday night.

Bellator 172 may have had a notable Fedor Emelianenko-shaped void, but the fighters on the card still put on a hell of a show. The women's flyweight contest debuting fighter Brooke Mayo and Veta Arteaga delivered on the fireworks front, with Mayo's gameness making it a real slobberknocker. Mayo showed to incredible toughness to consistently eat hard punches and keep moving forward and was level on the scorecards going into the final round. However, her heart also proved to be her downfall as all those strikes started doing some damage. Eventually, the referee was forced to step in and have a huge haematoma above her left eye checked out by the doctor. It was badly bruised and swollen to the size of tennis ball, but still Mayo wanted to stick it out until the end. “I can see, I can see,” she shouted at the referee. https://twitter.com/joesmith839/status/833150448588697605 However, after inspecting the injury, the doctor deemed Mayo unable to continue and awarded Arteaga the TKO victory. Shortly after the fight, Mayo released an emotional statement on Instagram congratulating her opponent on the win and giving an update on the eye. As it turned out, it wasn't as bad as it looked as she confirmed the orbital bone had not been broken and it was just badly bruised. https://www.instagram.com/p/BQr0EcNDXDS/?taken-by=bmayo1313