Remember the time, when Rashad Evans and Jon Jones were still teammates at Jackson’s MMA and promised to never fight each other? Well, they later did after Jones became champion. He beat Evans on points, their friendship was broken forever and Evans founded the new “Blackzilians” team in Florida
Now, Evans’ fellow Blackzilian Anthony “Rumble” Johnson is three months away from fighting Jon Jones himself, and many fans and pundits are giving the hard-hitting powerhouse more than a puncher’s chance of beating the sheer untouchable champion. Evans now stated in an interview with MMAJunkie that he won’t let history repeat itself and that he is “not going to fight Anthony”, should his teammate win at UFC 187. In that case, Evans rather plans on moving down a weight class to the 185 lbs. limit:
“If Anthony wins, I definitely would strongly consider moving down to 185,” Evans said. “One of the biggest problems for me is just being able to cut down. Believe it or not, I’m pretty heavy. I get up to like 240 (pounds). If I went down, it would have to be over a period of time, and I’d have to do it like Machida did it. […] Machida went down and stayed down and kind of chipped away at it. That’s what I would have to do: Reset my body to go lower and lower and then kind of stay lower. It would be a hard cut for me cutting from 240 all the way to 185.”
While Evans also mentioned he may be doing “some superfights or whatever” at light-heavyweight in case of a Rumble victory, he also makes it very clear that, despite a 13-month layoff and another six months of rehab ahead of him, he still has the UFC title in his sight:
“I’ve got to chase the belt. I can’t just be hanging around, doing these fights for money. I’ve got to fight for something. At that point, if he wins, I’ll probably drop down to 185.”
Before he does that however, Evans would love to have one more fight at 205 lbs., a rematch with former friend and teammate and now longtime rival Jon Jones.
“I want to compete against the best, and if Jones loses, I definitely want to fight Jones again,” Evans said. “We were teammates. We competed against each other, and it was a great time, but I still am competitive, and I would like to get that fight back. No matter what, I want to get that.”
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