We’re now three weeks away from one of the most anticipated UFC fights of 2012.
The UFC 145 main event battle between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans has been a long time coming, and the build-up for the bout should begin reaching a fever pitch with Friday’s debut episode of UFC Primetime: Jones vs. Evans. The three-part series will follow Jones and Evans as they wrap up training camp and head to Atlanta to square off for the light heavyweight title.
Both fighters have spent the past year waging a verbal battle, with Evans spending plenty of time discussing how he used to handle Jones when the two were training partners under the tutelage of Greg Jackson.
Jones has issued a response to those comments:
“Rashad talks about the time he held me down in practice and how he was getting me to break mentally,” Jones told the Sun.
“I’ve eliminated all possibilities of that happening. I have my older brother here, I have Travis Brown here and I have a whole bunch of heavyweights that are a lot more powerful and big than Rashad and I’m having these guys hold me down in practice and try their hardest to break me mentally. Basically, I’m fighting from the worst position he could put me in and if he’s banking on breaking me mentally, he’s going to have a rude awakening when he realizes that’s just not going to happen.”
Nobody will ever truly know what used to happen between Jones and Evans during those sparring sessions. The only people who might be able to shed some light on the subject are the other Greg Jackson fighters, and none of them are talking.
Evans may have been the superior fighter during those days. He probably has the best chance of anyone else in the light heavyweight division at cracking the Jones mystery and handing him his first real defeat.
But there’s one thing for certain: Jones has improved drastically, in all aspects of the game, since the last time he and Evans trained together. Evans needs to expect a much better version of the Bones than the one he faced in New Mexico. If he doesn’t, he’ll be in for a short night.
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