After a blistering UFC schedule that saw seven events in less than two months, the organization is taking a bit of a break for the month of March, but when it returns to PPV in April it’ll be presenting one of the most anticipated bouts of the year.
The rivalry between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans runs deep, dating back to early 2011 when Jones replaced his injured teammate Evans in a UFC title fight against Shogun Rua.
When Jones conceded he wasn’t against fighting Evans in the future, their relationship soon turned sour, and it wasn’t long after before a war of words resulted in Evans leaving Greg Jackson’s camp, a place he had trained for more than five years.
Now, after countless attempts to make the fight broke down due to injuries for both fighters, they are finally set to fight on April 21 in Atlanta in the UFC 145 main event.
Since winning the title from Rua in that UFC 128 bout, Jones has looked unstoppable, taking out former champions Rampage Jackson and Lyoto Machida with relative ease and staking his claim as one of the top pound for pound players on the planet.
But since the day Jones won his title the biggest threat for his belt in most fans’ minds has been Rashad Evans, who has taken the inability to get a fight with Jones in stride and has won two bouts over Tito Ortiz and Phil Davis while waiting for his chance.
If this fight had been made as soon as Jones had won the belt, like many had expected it to be, the general public would be giving Evans a decent shot at winning, but after seeing Jones run through three champions like they were gatekeepers at best, suddenly Evans is being given about as much of a shot at beating Jones as I would.
To put it mildly, this is insane.
Evans is still one of the best fighters in the world—he’s beaten nearly every opponent ever put in front of him, and he has an advantage that none of Jones’ previous opponents have had in that he’s trained with Jones.
Both Rampage and Machida had a hard time trying to deal with Jones’ reach and size advantage, something Evans has dealt with in training and will be able to game plan against far better than anyone else has.
Throw in Evans’ wrestling ability, which he showed off impressively against Phil Davis, who is a collegiate wrestling champion, and Jones is going to have a serious test in front of him when the bell rings in April.
Jon Jones is an amazing athlete and a fantastic fighter, but calling him unbeatable is a disservice to Evans and is almost comical. This is MMA, where upsets happen quite often and, to be fair, if Evans is able to take out “Bones” it won’t be anywhere near the biggest upset the MMA community has seen.
This doesn’t come down to a punches chance, or even Evans getting lucky and Jones having an off night.
Evans has the skills to beat Jones, and whether or not he does, he should at least be granted the respect by fans to not count him out before the bout even starts.
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