It’s not looking good for Rashad Evans following his knee injury, at least according to “Dr. Dana White.”
Jeremy Botter tweeted a quote from White about the severity of Evans’ knee injury.
News broke Wednesday that Evans had injured his knee and was forced out of his scheduled UFC 170 light heavyweight fight with Daniel Cormier.
Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole initially reported that Evans wouldn’t need surgery and only rehab after speaking with UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta.
Brett Okamoto of ESPN.com also gave an update that the scheduled fight between Evans and Cormier would likely be pushed back to UFC 172 or UFC 173.
It appears none of those options are available as the UFC president believes Evans will miss quite a bit of time.
It’s not the first time Evans has been on the shelf for an extended period of time. The former light heavyweight champ infamously sat on the sidelines, waiting for a chance to fight for the title, only to end up suffering an injury.
The injury would allow his teammate, the surging Jon “Bones” Jones to slide into the title shot against then-champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua—the rest is history.
Evans was on the way to re-establishing his stock in the light heavyweight division after it seemed as though he’d lost his passion for fighting. A not-so-flattering decision win against Dan Henderson and a dominant TKO finish of Chael Sonnen had Evans maintaining his top-five ranking in the division.
Cormier will still fight on the UFC 170 card against Patrick Cummins, according to Yahoo! Sports, but it’s a blow to Cormier’s chances at getting a title shot in the 205-pound division. Even if Cormier wins, he’ll likely have to face another high-profile fighter rather than being next in line, which is exactly where he could’ve found himself if Cormier had defeated Evans.
We at Bleacher Report hope for the best with Evans’ knee injury and hope for a speedy recovery from the former champ.
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