Author: Luke Thomas

ATLANTA — Former UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans spoke to MMA Fighting today about why professional boxers like Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones, Jr. seem to gravitate to him, how he responds to Jon Jones‘ claims that Evans has a weak chin or that he may not be in his physical prime, why the pain he felt from the divorce of his now ex-wife was worse in previous fights and if a win over Jones on Saturday validates that he’s not only a better fighter than Jones, but also the decision to leave the Greg Jackson camp.

ATLANTA — MMA trainer and coach Greg Jackson spoke to MMA Fighting today at the UFC 145 pre-fight open workouts. Jackson expressed surprise at the levels reached by some of the vitriolic personal attacks he received, discussed Rashad Evans‘ physical capabilities as he enters his thirties, contrasted the wrestling styles of Evans and Jon Jones, discussed how he and his camp manage Jones’ training as he grows in size and tried to make sense of why Jones’ fight IQ is underrated.

ATLANTA — As part of the post-UFC 145 press conference media scrum, UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones sat down with the media to discuss a variety of topics related to his upcoming fight with Rashad Evans. In this highlight video, Jones strongly defends the character of coach Greg Jackson and what he gives to fighters on the team, talks taking nutrition seriously, discusses mastering being content with discomfort, details how much he’s worked on his game on bottom and much more.

ATLANTA — Mike Van Arsdale, former UFC light heavyweight and current coach for the Blackzilians, spoke to MMA Fighting about Jon Jones‘ contention Rashad Evans may be past his physical prime, why Evans is a much better wrestler than previous wrestling-based Jones opponent Ryan Bader, if it’s true Greg Jackson was stretched too thin to help Evans before he left the camp and more.

This is the one we’ve all been waiting for and this time the phrase is not a marketing gimmick. The mixed martial arts world will witness one of the greatest rivalries in the sport’s history move into action this weekend as UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones defends his title against former champion, friend and training partner Rashad Evans. By most accounts, Jones is the favorite to win, but many believe Evans has just the right tools and knowledge to recapture lost glory. Is it true Evans has ‘Jones’ number’? Does Jones have too many advantages to really have his belt taken?

I’ll attempt to answer these questions with these predictions about UFC 145.

What: UFC 145: Jones vs. Evans

Where: Philips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia

When: Saturday, the Facebook preliminary starts at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, the four-fight FX card starts at 8 and the seven-fight pay-per-view card starts at 10.

Predictions on the six pay-per-view fights below.

Rashad Evans vs. Jon Jones

As I discussed previously, there’s really no way to look at this match-up and not conclude Jones has significant advantages. Then again, it’s also hard to conclude Evans is incapable of meeting the task at hand. If Evans is to win, it will be because he was able to successfully wrestle Jones to the floor, hold position and score damage on top. If Jones is to win, it’ll be because he was able to strike at range, defend the takedown or execute the takedown himself. Evans has never been submitted, but Jones’ adaptive submission prowess cannot be overlooked.

I’m fairly confident in the Jones pick. Evans has his work cut out for him. But don’t forget what happened the last time Rashad Evans went to Atlanta for a fight and everyone counted him out. He was +200 underdog against Chuck Liddell and he’s up to +400 this time out, but this is MMA. Stranger things have happened.

Pick: Jones

Rory MacDonald vs. Che Mills

Let’s be frank: it’s hard to see a way where Mills wins on Saturday. Not impossible, of course, but hard. He does have respectable striking, good hand speed and underrated experience, but skills win fights and MacDonald can’t be touched in that regard. Short of an errant punch he doesn’t see or a freak accident, this is McDonald’s fight to lose. In fact, picking MacDonald is probably the only rational choice. I can see him striking with Mills, but if he decides to use ground and pound instead, Mills doesn’t have the skill set to keep up.

Pick: MacDonald

Ben Rothwell vs. Brendan Schaub

This fight is an interesting one for both competitors, but for slightly different reasons. Both fighters are coming off of losses, but both are trying to achieve different objectives. For Rothwell, it’s about proving he can still compete at this level. His last fight against Mark Hunt was not particularly impressive, to say the least. Rothwell is extraordinarily tough and very difficult to put away, but the question is whether he’s got the skills offensively to be a competitor at this level of the fight game.

Schaub, by contrast, is trying to get his contendership back on track. He lost in devastating fashion to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC 134 and needs to prove the loss didn’t mentally scar him. In addition, by beating a fighter on the bubble like Roth, he can begin to climb his way back up the heavyweight ladder. Schaub’s boxing should do the trick as I just don’t see Rothwell doing enough to really give Schaub too much trouble.

Pick: Schaub

Miguel Torres vs. Michael McDonald

This is the toughest bout on the card to call if you have no stake in either fighter. Torres is extremely accomplished, possesses an excellent guard – one that has added potent sweeps to the arsenal – and respectable outside boxing. McDonald is a tough, strong athlete with excellent power, good wrestling and a well-rounded skill set altogether. Who prevails here? Could McDonald take Torres down and do enough in the judges eyes to work a points-based decision like Demetrious Johnson? Or is McDonald going to show he still has flaws in his game and lose scrambles to the more experienced Torres? There’s a strong case to be made for either fighter. For me, until I see McDonald beat someone at this level of the game, I’m going to have to side with experience. But I’m not doing it confidently. This fight will say a lot about both competitors when it’s over.

Pick: Torres

Mark Hominick vs. Eddie Yagin

Hominick is a -700 favorite over Yagin. Those are the sorts of odds Manny Pacquiao takes into fights, if you’re looking to see what a blowout this should be. Perhaps I’m discounting Yagin unfairly and he’ll prove to be the Juan Manuel Marquez to Hominck’s Pacquiao, but I doubt it. Yagin has a nice guillotine, but probably not nice enough to stop the relatively submission savvy Canadian. And on the feet it isn’t much of a contest. Yes, Hominick got starched by a much less effective striker in Chan Sung Jung, but I doubt lightning will strike twice in a bottle.

Pick: Hominick

John Alessio vs. Mark Bocek

This fight is strange because it pits two of the most technical fighters around with contrasting styles against one another, but I wonder what the enjoyment factor might be. Alessio has terribly underrated takedown defense and is very strong defensively (for the most part). Bocek, though, is the type of fighter to press an opponent into the cage and work tirelessly for the takedown until he gets it. In other words, I see Alessio on the defensive for much of this bout and not able to do much of his own. Bocek could submit him – he is the better submission grappler by far – but it’s probably going to take a while if he does. This one could very easily go the distance.

Pick: Bocek

As the old saying goes, ‘dance with the one that brought you’. UFC bantamweight Michael McDonald certainly believes that. Sure, he’s had to adapt here or there. Everyone changes a little bit, right? That’s just normal. But the strategy that got you to the big show and the team who was with you when you arrived? McDonald thinks letting go of those life lynchpins isn’t the wisest of decisions.

Case in point: McDonald’s next fight. In the mind of McDonald – who faces the stiffest test of his career when he squares off against former WEC bantamweight champion Miguel Torres at UFC 145 – Torres is talented, but he’s not as lethal as he used to be. “I don’t know if he’s as dangerous as he once was, but I think he’s the same fighter if that makes any sense,” the burgeoning prospect told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. And why is that the case? To McDonald, it’s because he’s been changing too many things about his life and training after getting knocked out by Brian Bowles at WEC 42.

“You might get knocked out once,” McDonald explained, “He had 30 freaking wins or more – give or take – on one style. He gets knocked out once and he changes the style and I think that’s wrong. I think you need to stick with the style that got you where you are.”

Those are some awfully strong sentiments for a fighter born in 1991. Sometimes it’s easy to forget McDonald is only 21 years of age. That’s typically the point in adulthood maturation where people are more willing to make claims about how the world is or should be despite lacking the wisdom of experience.

The again, maybe not. McDonald is anything but the typical know-it-all 21 year old kid. In fact, he makes his assertion about Torres on the back of his own devastating stoppage loss he suffered three years ago. McDonald views the episode as the wake up call he need to take the sport more seriously, but is adamant that radically changing himself in the process would’ve been detrimental. “It’s like when I lost to Cole Escovedo,” McDonald said, “I didn’t go back and change my entire gameplan. I said, ‘Ok, my wrestling sucks. I need to get better at it’. I’m not going to change my style. I just need to get better.”

“I think it’s horrible when people finally get knocked out one time and they decide to change everything,” McDonald maintained. To him, a loss like that can be devastating, but that’s the time to make adjustments, not upheavals. “I think it’s a simple basic when you get knocked out. You didn’t have your hands up. Period. That’s it.”

McDonald will get a chance to prove if consistency is the key to success in MMA or if Torres’ evolutions and personal revolutions have undone what was already good this weekend. And for the burgeoning bantamweight prospect, facing Torres is something he’s wanted for quite some time.

“I’ve wanted to fight Miguel for a really long time, but it’s not like a personal thing. I think he’s good, but I think I’m better. I’d like to fight him to see if I really am,” McDonald said.

But why Torres? Of all bantamweights, how did the man with the mullet come to get singled out? McDonald explains his logic: “I wanted to fight him when I saw him fight Manny Tapia. You see someone at first and you think they’re invincible. You see Miguel Torres with his crazy record and you see him beat the crap out of Chase Beebe in a minute or I don’t even know how long it was, storm on to the track and everyone think he’s incredible.”

“And then you see him in a war and you start to see how they’re human. You start to say, ‘I think I can beat this guy’. That’s how it started for me. Everyone was saying he’s the best and I thought that I could beat him as soon as I saw him in some longer fights. Ever since that day I wanted to fight both of those guys, Manny Tapia and Miguel Torres. I actually got the chance about a year after I saw that fight to fight Manny and I got that fight. Now it seems like it’s the perfect storm for that next one.”

For Torres’ part, he is respectful of McDonald’s ability and cognizant of the challenge, but isn’t so sure his opponent isn’t a little wet behind the ears. When told of Torres’ intention to show McDonald ‘what’s what’ and prove veteran experience matters, McDonald again defied the tendencies of his 21-year old cohorts. There was no lashing out or angry response.

“I find it to be trash talk that’s cheap,” he said. “You hear everyone on the planet talk a good game and not sit here and say, ‘oh, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do that’. I’m going to talk tactics. I’m going to talk martial arts. I’m going to talk reality and let other people talk whatever they want. I’m not going to say ‘I’m going to go in there and knock Miguel Torres out, I’m going to show him I’m real’ because that’s just cheap.”

“I’ll just talk tactics. I’ll talk what I really think matters, which is martial arts . A game of speech has to be a body. That’s the bottom line: the better martial artist will win.”

Is McDonald the better martial artist? Even he doesn’t know. No one does and McDonald won’t assert something he can’t prove with words. But as long as he fights like he has been – or maybe just a little bit better – and his familiar friends and coaches are in his corner on Saturday night, he’ll be the first to tell you he likes his chances.

“I can only back it up in the fight. If I do it, then I’ll do it. But I don’t know to see say it, because if I say it and don’t do it, then I’ll look like a moron. I would rather just leave it be. Words like that are best left unsaid.”

How can McDonald already know the right things to say? If he’s not impressing you with his focus, he’s surprising you with his deference. McDonald might be the wisest 21-year old in MMA. And after Saturday night, he might be on it’s best bantamweights, too. He’ll just need to dance with the one that brought him there.