Jeremy Botter: I’m sitting in a suite in the Philips Arena with Clay Guida. The Arena, as the kind gentleman standing outside Ted’s Bison Grill referred to it, is the home of tomorrow night’s UFC 145 card. We spend plenty of time talking about basketball, but I’m not much of an expert on the sport these days. My hometown Rockets just completed an epic failure to reach the playoffs, so we don’t have much to be excited about.
I ask Guida about the main event with Jones and Evans, and if it’s tough for him to see two men who were once his training partners embroiled in such a bitter rivalry.
“It is. Rashad is the guy who brought me to Jackson’s MMA in the first place,” Guida says.
These are the stories we don’t hear much of when we’re discussing Jones vs. Evans and the friendship they once had. How does it affect guys like Guida, who consider both men friends? It’s apparent from reading Guida’s facial expressions that it’s not an easy subject to talk about.
At the core, though, Guida is still a fight fan. We discuss Jon Jones and the world of potential he has. He believes, like I do, that Jones is eventually going to be a force in the heavyweight division. Over the next 18 months or so, he could quite literally become the greatest fighter in the history of the sport. Guida notes Jones’ frame and how, with ten to fifteen pounds of muscle, he could be absolutely terrifying at heavyweight.
One thing is clear: Guida, like everyone else, is a fight fan. And he can’t wait to see the action unfold tomorrow night.