It’s now clear why “Suga” Rashad Evans spent so much time running his mouth prior to his UFC light heavyweight title fight with Jon Jones at UFC 145 on Saturday night. It’s now clear why Evans put so much energy into calling out his former sparring partner, suggesting to anyone who would ask (and even some who didn’t) that his buddy “Bones” had betrayed him in pursuit of the title.
Because, well, there wasn’t much else he could do to slow down Jones, much less rip the title belt off his waist. Like Shogun Rua, Rampage Jackson and Lyoto Machida before him, Evans couldn’t quite handle Jones’ size, skill, agility and length in the Octagon.
Nor could Evans cope with Jones’ elbows, which the 24-year-old put to devastating effect, on top of a barrage of punches and kicks over five punishing rounds at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, GA.
It was as thorough a beatdown as Evans has ever encountered, though Jones still praised Evans for giving him the toughest fight of his career.
True, the result didn’t look all that difficult for Jones to achieve. He failed to knock Evans out, but that hardly precluded him from earning a unanimous decision on the judges’ scorecards.
Then again, when has victory for Jones ever seemed easy to the naked eye? Of his previous 15 wins, only two had gone the distance.
And his one career defeat came by disqualification, for hammering Matt Hamill too viciously with those same elbows (or, an obscure rules violation) that did so much damage to Suga Rashad.
It’s tough to blame Evans, then, for trashing Jones as he did for so long. The only chance he ever had of breaking Bones’ stranglehold on the light heavyweight division was if he somehow found a way into his head.
Which is to say, Evans never had a chance. Though the credit to Jones should far outweigh any blame that might fall on Rashad’s slumped shoulders.
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