Fans have been waiting nearly a year to see former teammates Rashad Evans and Jon Jones meet inside the Octagon at UFC 145, and the former champion has every intention of pulling off the upset against the man many people consider to be one of the greatest light heavyweight fighters.
Evans doesn‘t look at his opponent the same way as the fans do, and his most recent blog post at Yahoo.com shows it.
“Yeah, I want to beat Jon and prove a point that he’s not this god we all need to pray to at night,” Evans wrote. “He said on live TV that America could learn from him. I Googled it: There are 311,591,917 people living in America right now and Jon Jones thinks that 311,591,916 of them need to learn from him. He’s a drop in a bucket like the rest of us. The guy praises himself going to sleep.”
Since losing the title to Lyoto Machida in 2009, Evans has been on nothing but an uphill battle to regain his title. Despite having won four fights since then, including wins over Quinton Jackson, Phil Davis, Thiago Silva and Tito Ortiz, Evans is only getting his shot now.
Injuries to both Evans and Jones kept them from competing against each other since Jones won the title at UFC 128 when he became the youngest UFC champion.
His victory over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was the second of four that year, which many fans consider to be one of the best single years a fighter has ever had.
“There’s really not much more he can say to me to motivate me,” Evans wrote. “I’m already motivated for this fight; I’m motivated beyond reason. Yeah, I want to be the first guy to really beat Jon, yeah, I want my title belt back and I want to show my former trainer what’s what. But this fight is not about proving a lot of people wrong about Jon Jones; it’s about proving me right.”
He continued, “The illusion of the mythical Jon Jones that the other guys fought, it doesn’t exist for me. I know how weak he is mentally—all the doubts he has about himself. I’m going to be the first one to stop this kid.”
Jones’ wins include those over Rua, Machida, Jackson, Ryan Bader and Stephan Bonnar. He has finished all but two of his opponents inside the Octagon and has only suffered one defeat due to disqualification.
The pay-per-view event will go down April 21 at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia.
Other bouts on the card include: Rory MacDonald vs. Che Mills; Brendan Schaub vs. Ben Rothwell; Michael McDonald vs. Miguel Torres; Mark Hominick vs. Eddie Yagin; and Mark Bocek vs. John Alessio.
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