Rashad Evans talks fighting, burn out and Chael Sonnen

Rashad Evans is excited about his upcoming bout with Chael Sonnen. The Fox Sports booth-mates will be trading their headsets for mouthpieces and MMA…

By: Nate Wilcox | 10 years ago
Rashad Evans talks fighting, burn out and Chael Sonnen
Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

Rashad Evans is excited about his upcoming bout with Chael Sonnen. The Fox Sports booth-mates will be trading their headsets for mouthpieces and MMA gloves at UFC 167 in November and Evans is glad to have a bout worth looking forward to. He told Ariel Helwani yesterday on the MMA Hour that he’s been battling burn out for a while:

“It’s not something I’m going to try to find at night. It’s something, I’ve got to cross it every day. I’ve got to remember, okay, this is why I’m doing it,” Evans said. “See, the biggest part, what happened to me before, is the fact that I forgot why I was doing it. I didn’t enjoy it anymore. I was to the point where I was just going through the motions. I didn’t enjoy the process, because it’s all about the process. You’ve got to really dig deep and you’ve got to really love every single thing about the game.

“The grind, the grind is where it’s at. So I gotta fall in love with that grind again. And that grind is what brings that dog out. Because when I’m out there and I’m doing that extra work, when I’m hitting that bag and I’m making myself go until I can’t go no more, until I want to pass out because I’m so dizzy with exhaustion, when I do that, I know somebody has to pay for that. So when I’m on and when my mindset is going like that, on fight night it becomes easy, being I’ve been breeding that dog all through training camp. On fight night I get to let it out.”

Evans broke a two-fight losing streak with a UFC 161 split decision win over Dan Henderson. Prior to that he lost to Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and a title shot against Jon Jones.

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About the author
Nate Wilcox
Nate Wilcox

Nate Wilcox is the founding editor of BloodyElbow.com. As such he has hired every editor and writer to work for the site. Wilcox’s writing for BE is known for its emphasis on MMA history, the evolution of fighting techniques and strong opinions. Wilcox developed the SBN MMA consensus rankings which were featured in USA Today from 2009 to 2011. Before founding BE, Wilcox was a political operative working for such figures as Senators John Kerry and Mark Warner and an early political blogger. He is the co-author of Netroots Rising, a history of the political blogosphere from 2003 to 2007. Wilcox also hosts the Let It Roll podcast on music history for the Pantheon Podcast Network.

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