Rashad Evans is ready to return to Octagon action.
Evans’ last Octagon appearance saw him suffer a gnarly first round knockout loss to Glover Teixeira in their headliner bout at UFC on FOX 19 last April. The former light heavyweight champion attempted to make his debut at 185 pounds against Tim Kennedy at UFC 205 in New York, but was pulled from the fight due to a failed medical exam.
Their bout was rescheduled for UFC 206 in Canada but Evans was again unable to obtain a medical license to compete. Now Evans is expected to finally make his middleweight debut against Dan Kelly this weekend (Sat. March 4, 2017) at UFC 209.
Evans recently spoke to FOX Sports ahead of his clash with Kelly to detail how he felt during the period of time he was denied license to compete in New York or Canada:
“I never felt so much at the mercy of the other people in my whole life and it’s a very humbling thing,” Evans said. “I trained so hard and I put the work in and I did everything I could do on my end but then I had to sit back and be told that I can’t fight. Then I was told that I may never fight again. It was hard to deal with. For the last 14 years or so, I’ve been a fighter for so long I kind of forgot what it’s like to not have this as my biggest form of expression of who I am.
“For a brief second I was like it may be over and I was in denial for a long time. Even when they told me I couldn’t fight in New York, I was waiting for them to be like ‘oh we’re just kidding’. I couldn’t believe that it was actually going down that I was not going to fight. That it was not clearing up. I was in denial for a while. Then I got the chance to fight in Toronto and then it happened in Toronto where they didn’t even give me a second look. They were like ‘New York said no so we’re saying no’. It was a helpless feeling.”
When he was finally cleared by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) to compete this weekend, Evans almost got emotional upon receiving news that he would finally get to compete inside the Octagon once again in almost a year:
“I almost cried to be honest. It was an emotional thing for me because no fighter wants to go out like that, especially me,” Evans said. “I didn’t want to go out like that. I know one day this will be over and I feel like I’ll be able to handle it but I just wasn’t ready for it to end like that. I wasn’t ready for it to end without me having a chance to compete again and have the feelings of how you feel going into a fight.
“You’re battling yourself and you’re nervous and you have all those thoughts in your mind, all those things that happen when you’re riding that emotional roller coaster when you’re getting ready for a fight. Those are the things that you love most about fighting. To never experience that again, it was really hard to wrap my mind around. When the commission said I was able to fight, I was just relieved and I was happy.”
With the move down to 185 pounds Evans says he feels like he’s starting a new career and is getting a rush of ‘rookie feelings’ heading into his fight with Kelly:
“It definitely feels like a second career,” Evans said. “Because it feels like I’m starting all over. Almost every aspect of it. From training situations to just getting cleared to a new weight class, everything feels brand new.
“I feel like a new kid on the block. It’s refreshing. I’m excited, I’m nervous, I have all those rookie feelings but I know I can do it because I’ve done it before.”
Evans is looking to make a statement this weekend for those who have doubted him and already written him off, and plans to unleash a lot of pent up anger on Kelly to do so:
“I’ve definitely got something to prove. I want to go out there and show a lot of people that have doubted me and who really just stuck a fork in me and said that I’m done. That don’t think I can do it and say that I should quit. All those things they say when they think you don’t have it anymore,” Evans said. “The looks that they give you and the kind of snide remarks that people make. Things like that. I’ve definitely got something to prove and I’m going to go in there and release myself to say the least. Release a lot of anger and just have fun out there because at the end of the day, I’ve been at the top of the sport and I’ve been at the bottom. I’ve had some real hard setbacks in this sport and I learned to realize that you can’t really build who you are on what people say. That’s ultimately building your foundation in sand.
“People come and go and what they say doesn’t really last. I’m definitely looking forward to going out there and just letting people know that I’m not finished and when I’m finished is when I say I’m finished.”
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