While they are few and far between, there are some respected veterans of the fight game who are predicting an upset in the UFC 197 main event for the light heavyweight title, and “Suga” Rashad Evans is among them.
Evans was recently asked for his prediction for the upcoming rematch between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier on April 23rd and surprisingly enough, he went with D.C. to upset his former Jackson/Winkeljohn teammate.
Evans told FOX Sports the following when asked for a prediction on the Cormier-Jones II bout:
“I am going to go on record and I’m going to go with the upset on this one — I’m going to go with DC. For some reason I just feel like DC’s going to get this fight. I think that DC now is a better DC than the first time that Jon fought him. Also I think the layoff is not easy to come back from and Jon’s never really had to face this. So mentally going into the fight, there’s some things different. There’s some things different as far as USADA thing, and it just has a different feel. Mentally, coming into this fight, I think (Cormier) is in a different place. I’m a huge Jon Jones fan as far as his talent and everything in the Octagon, but I just worry that Jon under this new mindset, this new Jon Jones, is he going to still be able to go out there and do the things that we’ve seen him do so easily?”
UFC 197: Cormier vs. Jones II is scheduled to headline the UFC 197 pay-per-view event scheduled to go down in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday, April 23, 2016.