Rashad Evans on his biggest win... for now

[pa99ortiz]

Sep-24-2008
Rashad Evans on His Biggest Win...For Now
By Thomas Gerbasi

Things couldn’t have been going more smoothly for 23-year old Michigan State Spartan Rashad Evans. He was fresh off a victory over West Virginia’s Greg Jones, the defending NCAA wrestling champion, and was one win away from earning All-American honors at the 2003 NCAA Championships.His opponent that March night at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri was a familiar one, a Big Ten rival who had beaten him before – Purdue’s Ryan Lange.

“He always beat me by like a point,” said Evans. “And he did it again.”

By a 3-2 nod, Lange defeated Evans, kept him from becoming an All-American, and ended his collegiate wrestling career. The Niagara Falls native would continue competing though, taking up mixed martial arts later in 2003.

18 professional MMA fights later, Evans remembers that match against Lange.

“I felt like I let myself down because I knew that wasn’t the best that I could do,” he said. “I felt like I held back and I said ‘man, if I compete again, this is not gonna happen.’”

It hasn’t. Evans is currently 17-0-1 and on his way to a UFC light heavyweight title fight sometime in the future against reigning 205-pound boss Forrest Griffin. It’s a string of excellence of which Evans only says, “I’m very fortunate,” but that really has nothing to do with it. What has led him to this point have been endless hours in the gym, countless sacrifices, and the skill and smarts to not only survive, but thrive in one of the sport’s most unforgiving divisions.

Just take the champion for instance – Griffin survived losses to Tito Ortiz and Keith Jardine to come back and take out PRIDE star Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua and then decision reigning champion Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson for the title belt. Among the other stalwarts at 205 pounds, only Lyoto Machida and Thiago Silva share Evans’ undefeated status, and unlike boxing, going through life in the UFC almost guarantees that a fighter’s precious “0” will be removed sooner, rather than later. Want more proof? Of 22 fighters on October 18th’s UFC 89 card in Birmingham, only three (Paul Kelly, Shane Carwin, and Neil Wain) own perfect slates, and two of them – Carwin and Wain – are fighting each other. So that “0” is special at this level of the sport.

It’s not everything though, and entering his September 6th bout with future Hall of Famer Chuck Liddell in Atlanta, Evans knew that one win over the UFC icon would do more for his public profile and respect level among the hardcore fans than any of his previous wins. So he prepared accordingly, going through the paces in Greg Jackson’s Albuquerque gym with an eye on shocking the world. It wasn’t going to be easy though, especially with the gameplan focusing on striking with the striker, as opposed to wrestling with the striker.

When the bell rang though, Evans was loose and confident, and with quick hands and feet, he eluded ‘The Iceman’ while getting in enough shots to keep him honest. It was a disciplined effort that saw ‘Sugar’ follow his gameplan to perfection.

“It all started in practice and just trusting my coaches, especially my standup coach, Mike Winkeljohn,” recalled Evans. “There were a lot of sparring practices where I would start, I’d get hit, and the next thing you know I’m out of the gameplan and I’m not listening to what he’s telling me to do. So there was a lot of practice, and just using his eyes to see different things in a fight. If you’re at ringside you would hear him yelling out combinations for me to shoot, and my job was to just stay in there, listen to what he was saying, and keep moving and doing all the things we practiced.”

He makes it sound easy, but as Mike Tyson once famously said “Everybody’s got a plan until they get hit.” Evans alluded to his difficulties in sticking to the plan in early practices when he got hit, and getting hit by Chuck Liddell is a whole other animal. He admits it took a lot of mental strength to stay focused.

“It was hard,” said Evans. “He’s throwing punches at you, he may hit you with a good punch, and I’m a wrestler, so my first instinct is that when somebody hits me good, I want to close the distance and get into my safety zone. So it was hard to just say ‘okay, okay’, and I just talked myself through it.”

And he left the takedowns to the pre-fight prognosticators who said that was his only chance of pulling off the victory.

“That was the whole thing,” said Evans. “If we were gonna take him down, it was gonna be on our terms, and when we felt we could take him down at will. There was no pressure to take him down. I was confident enough in my standup that we could go blow for blow and I was not gonna be afraid to take a hit from him and just do it. You hear people talk about his punching power, and you try not to let it really resonate in your mind because the last thing you want to be doing is going out there afraid of your opponent’s punch. Then you’ll be fighting a scared fight.”

That’s not to say Evans didn’t taste a little thunder from the former light heavyweight champion.

“Liddell is extremely accurate,” he chuckled. “When I was moving and on the go, I felt like I was in my safety zone, and he caught me with a couple good punches, and I was like ‘woo, he does hit pretty hard.’”

By the end of the first round, Evans knew he had Liddell. He had made a 38-year old chase him around the Octagon for five minutes, peppered Liddell with shots that let him know that he was still in a fight, and he saw the frustration setting in. And when frustration sets in on a fighter, mistakes follow, and in MMA, one mistake means good night.

“I knew at the end of the first round he was getting furious,” said Evans. “You could see when he was trying a little bit harder. The crowd was booing a little bit and he wasn’t liking it. Plus, what a lot of people didn’t see is that I was hitting him. I was leading in the first round, hitting him, and they were just these little shots, but it was enough for him to respect my power because he wasn’t rushing in like he planned on doing. I hit him with a couple good jabs, then I went over the top and caught him with a couple of hooks that cut his eye up, so he was getting mad – ‘this dude is hitting me and running.’ And every time he came in, he was like ‘I’m gonna knock him out.’”

Liddell picked up the pace in round two, looking to pin Evans against the fence and let loose with his patented right hand. Nearly two minutes into the second stanza, Liddell had his chance and he fired off a right uppercut. At the same time, Evans finished off a range finding left jab and threw his own right, this one over the top.

Evans landed first, and Liddell was knocked out the moment it landed.

“My intention when I threw the punch was to throw it as fast as I can,” he recalled. “And I threw it, it went through, and I was gonna follow up with the left hook, but he was already going down. And after the left hook went by, I was like ‘oh no, he fell down. I’ve gotta hurry up and finish him.’ But it seemed like it took forever for me to come out of that left hook to turn around and get on him.”

Referee Herb Dean stepped in immediately and halted the bout at the 1:51 mark. The crowd at Philips Arena was stunned.

“It was so quiet in there, I could hear a pin drop,” said Evans. “The fight was over, Herb Dean had stopped it, and I was in shock because everybody was so quiet.”

Just like that, Evans had earned his 17th and biggest victory, one that earned him a shot at Griffin’s light heavyweight championship. The days after the fight became a whirlwind
of well-wishes and interviews, with everyone (not just in the MMA community) talking about the shot heard ‘round the world. Evans is not getting too caught up in his instant celebrity though.

“I’m definitely able to enjoy the moment, and everybody’s so excited about it, but I try not to live in the moment,” he said. “I don’t want this to be the only thing I’ve ever done when it comes to my career. I want this to be the beginning stage, where people start to really see my capabilities. I’m trying to walk a fine line – yeah, I enjoyed it and it was a good experience, but I’m not truly satisfied, because satisfaction is something you get once you’re ready to be done because you have fulfillment. If you don’t have that fulfillment, you’re always able to go on and reach new heights. And that’s what I want to do.”

Until then, at least he’s finally silenced some of the critics and is starting to reap the rewards of being one of the top light heavyweights in the game, respect that has eluded him in the past. And oddly enough, Evans’ future opponent and fellow Ultimate Fighter winner, Griffin, went through a similar period where he had a solid fanbase but not the respect of the hardcore fans. A win by Griffin over Rua changed that perception, and the Liddell victory is doing similar magic for Evans.

“I think it’s kinda messed up that sometimes I’m just passed over, but that’s what I call soul food,” he said. “It’s food for my soul and it helps me grow to be stronger than I normally would if everyone else had been behind me the whole time. But I definitely believe that if I keep going in there and showing people what’s inside of me – what I can do and what I’m capable of doing – it will definitely let them say ‘wow, I was wrong about him.’”

He certainly won’t be able to sneak up on anybody anymore now, especially Griffin. Evans knows it and he’s already back in the gym, helping his teammate Jardine get ready for his October 18th bout with Brandon Vera. Ironically, Jardine is owner of wins over Liddell and Griffin, and he’s helping Evans repeat that feat – they’re halfway there.

“Jardine is a great help,” said Evans. “I feel like a cheater because I feel like I have an unfair advantage over these guys. (Laughs) He definitely helps me out, he’s my brother through and through, and he’s a good coach as well. Jardine was in my corner that night, and he was coaching me the whole time. I have a lot of great brothers helping me out – Nate Marquardt, GSP, Paul Buentello came out to help me out for Chuck and he was a huge part of the camp.”

Each fight is a team effort for the 29-year old Evans, and as you read earlier, he’s quick to deflect praise from himself and direct it to his training partners and coaches. But in the end, it’s up to him to execute when it counts, and so far, no one has been able to have their hand raised over his. Now it’s on to the sport’s biggest prize, and he’s ready.

“It feels like it was a long journey, but it’s a wonderful thing and it feels great,” said Evans of his impending title shot. “I can’t go ahead and make it too big of a thing though. It has to be just another fight for me. And that’s how I’m gonna approach it. I’d love to be a title holder, and whether I go out there and win this time or not, I’m gonna be a title holder. It’s a matter of not putting too much pressure on myself, enjoying the moment, and going out there and trying to have fun with it.”

And winning is a lot more fun than losing. Just ask Rashad Evans.

UFC® : Ultimate Fighting Championship®

[GL Jeff]

My best to Rashad. He worked hard,and now hopefuly he gets some nut huggers. To be honest I never liked or disliked sugar. And I wont say hes going to be the best, yadda yadda yadda. I think with the team he has, he can go a long way. But I still root for my man Forest.

[sodium_nitrate]

i never thought we'd be seeing two tuf'ers fighting for a belt so soon. the mma scene as a whole has evolved a lot since that first season.

[Duskseyr]

Fo sho. I remember so many people talking shit about the TUF fighters, and how they weren't 'real' competition. It's good to see that they have come so far, least some of em.