Jon Jones’ destruction of the UFC light heavyweight division continued last night as he added Quinton “Rampage” Jackson to his list of victims. We saw what has happened to those who have challenged Jones thus far, but the question now has become, “Can anyone can beat him?”
The next guy with a chance will be Jones’ former teammate and training partner Rashad Evans, who manhandled Tito Ortiz to earn back his No. 1 contenders’ spot at UFC 133. But does Rashad Evans stand a better chance against Jon Jones than Jones’ previous opponents did?
On the surface, it’s hard to answer that question. We’ve seen enough of both Jon Jones and Rashad Evans to know what they are capable of, but the story around Rashad Evans goes a lot deeper than just his history of fighting.
Evans missed over 14 months due to a string of untimely injuries and scenarios that kept him from training and competing. His first fight back was supposed to be Jon Jones for the title at UFC 133, but Jones got sidelined by a hand injury himself. Jones was replaced by Ortiz in the event and then went on to fight Rampage Jackson at UFC 135 shortly thereafter.
It’s not that Jones or Evans were specifically trying to avoid one another, but the timing of the injuries that each fighter sustained was just unfortunate. With Ortiz stepping in for Jones, it was up to Evans to walk through the 36-year old and again solidify his shot at Jones.
Though Rashad was able to get through Ortiz, some would argue that we didn’t get to see enough of him to decide whether or not he was really “back” or if he was just beating up on an old and overwhelmed Tito Ortiz, as many others had done over the past few years.
Certainly, Rashad looked good, but it was his first fight after leaving Greg Jackson’s gym and it’s hard to determine if he stuck to an effective game plan or if he just used his physical superiority to win the fight.
The beauty of this fight between Evans and Jones is that while every other fighter that Jones has faced has been “mesmerized,” as Rampage said last night in his post-fight interview, by the 24-year old, Rashad Evans should already have a pretty good idea of what he’s getting himself into.
Evans was once a member of Greg Jackson’s gym along with Jones, and the two fighters trained alongside one another in preparation for one another’s fights.
There have been conflicting reports about which fighter usually came out on top in their sparring sessions, but there is no doubt that Evans does have an advantage over any of Jones’ previous opponents when it comes to game-planning for the long-legged champion.
Another interesting aspect is that, like Jones, Rashad has a very unique fighting style that has caused many problems for his opponents. At 16-1-1 in his professional career, Evans has only ever been really figured out in his knockout loss to Lyoto Machida.
The fact is that Rashad Evans has never been given the credit that he deserves by the mainstream. While fighters like Rampage Jackson, Forrest Griffin, Michael Bisping, Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz have been absolutely adored by the media at times; they all have one thing in common—each one of them has been defeated by Rashad Evans.
Whether Jon Jones is ready to admit it, Evans is set to be the biggest challenge he has ever faced. He’s still going to be the underdog against the champion, but Evans has a better chance of coming out with a win over Jones than anyone who has faced him yet in his career.
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