Issue 066

September 2010

Fresh from his win over ‘Rampage’, Rashad Evans finally understands that he can’t please everybody. So instead of wrestling for respect, ‘Suga’ plans to fight his way back to the belt.

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans wants to make one thing perfectly clear: wrestling is a martial art.

“Wrestling is probably one of the oldest martial arts out there,” Evans says. “It’s not respected in MMA, but it’s definitely one of the biggest parts of the sport. Every single fight you’ll ever see – no matter who it is or where it takes place – at some given point, without a referee, will break out into a damn wrestling match.”

If Evans sounds a bit defensive, it’s because he is. Despite a one-sided unanimous-decision victory over fellow former champion Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson in the main event of May’s UFC 114 in Las Vegas, Evans continues to deal with critics who bemoan his wrestling-based attack as a dull lay-and-pray strategy. 

Evans doesn't understand the logic.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God. You suck. All you did was just lay and pray on Rampage the whole time. You didn't do nothing,’” Evans says, talking exclusively to Fighters Only upon return from his obligatory post-main event family holiday. “Were these people even watching the fight? Out of three times I took him down, every single time I got him down I was working, and I was hitting him every time. I got him in the crucifix a couple of times when I had him down, so I don't understand what they're talking about when they say laying and praying.” 

The criticism Evans has faced following the win over Jackson (and his grappling-heavy decision win over Thiago Silva in January) is nothing new. In fact, entering the cage to a chorus of boos has become routine for ‘Suga’. 

Evans insists he’s come to terms with being portrayed as a villain, but he’s not going to change. Instead, the 30-year-old plans on fighting – and wrestling – his way back to the top of the UFC’s 205lb division. 

“I used to want to get cheered” 

Evans’ first exposure to how MMA fans feel about him was after his 2005 stint on The Ultimate Fighter. At 5’11” and 225lb, Evans competed as a heavyweight on the show and actually earned the season's tournament title by defeating Tom Murphy, Mike Whitehead, now-teammate Keith Jardine and Brad Imes. Despite his impressive run, the real story of the show became Matt Hughes’ disdain for Evans’ showboating antics in the cage.

It’s a reputation that Evans says likely still haunts him today.

“It’s funny because a lot of people that are fans don’t even know why they hate me,” Evans said. “They may even hate me because their brother may have hated me from watching me on TUF, but he doesn’t even watch anymore, so their first exposure was somebody saying, ‘Oh, I don’t like this guy.’ So they go, ‘Well, I don’t really like him either.’ You know what I’m saying? 

“That’s basically what it comes down to. A lot of people are lazy when it comes to making up their own mind about something, you know? If you’re labeled one way, then people think that’s how you are. It takes too much time to really look into things deeper.” 

With a 10-1-1 record in the UFC, Evans has certainly accomplished enough in the world’s largest mixed martial arts organization to warrant a little respect. He says he used to hope for a change, but those days are now long gone.

“I used to want to get cheered,” the psychology graduate says. “I used to want to get people to cheer for me. I used to want to be the Forrest Griffin, the Chuck Liddell, the endearing guy. The Rampage, where no matter what you do, you can only do right. You can do anything in the world – they make excuses for your behavior. I used to want to be that dude, but I realized one thing: that’s just not going to be me.

“I don’t know the way to the fans’ hearts. It’s hard. I really can’t call it. I really don’t understand it for the life of me, man. I stopped trying to really put too much thought into it, you know? Whether they pay to boo me or pay to cheer for me, I guess it really doesn't matter, as long as they want to see me fight. They can boo me all they want. They can hate all they want.”

“You have to make adjustments”

Never was Evans’ uphill battle for fan respect more evident than in his fight with Jackson. Despite Jackson pulling out of the original matchup, which was set to take place in December 2009 in the Pride veteran’s hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, in order to film the feature film The A-Team, the fans stood behind Rampage. Despite Jackson’s often cringe-worthy behavior as a coach on The Ultimate Fighter 10, a stark contrast to Evans’ impressive instructing on the show, the fans stood behind Rampage. When Evans walked to the scales at a packed Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas in order to make his UFC 114 bout with Jackson official, the building was filled with jeers.

“A lot of people just don't like me, and then the fact that I was going against somebody everybody likes in Rampage made it tough,” Evans said. “Everyone thinks he’s so funny. ‘Oh, he’s just so funny. He’s so cool.’ They look at him as being a tough guy. He got a couple of slams in Pride, and he got a couple of good fights and now everybody is like, ‘Oh, my God, Rampage.’ He’s got this legend behind him. 

“It’s the legend of Rampage Jackson that I had to hear all about on Twitter before the fight. ‘He is going to knock you out with one punch and make you do the ‘stanky leg’ [after the hip-hop dancefloor banger by The GS Boyz]. He is going to lift you up and slam you.’ When was the last time that Rampage slammed anybody?” 

Fuelled in part by the fans’ negative energy and further by his genuine dislike for Jackson, Evans went out and controlled his rival on the floor and against the cage while cruising to a three-round victory. But if you thought a dominating performance might win over the fans, think again. That’s when the criticism really started to mount.

“When I had Rampage against the cage, I was working on his legs,” Evans said. “Ask him why did he do an interview with Fighters Only talking about how I was messing up his knee that was hurt. I know what I was doing. I’m a professional. 

“I know that I’m just going in, and even though you can’t feel at home what I’m doing to him, that doesn’t mean it’s not doing anything to him inside the cage. Fans look at it on TV at home and say I wasn’t doing anything but just holding his shorts and kneeing him on his thigh. How much could that hurt? Well, let me get you against the cage and knee you in your thigh and see how much it hurts.” 

Adding fuel to the critics’ fire was the January win over Thiago Silva in which Evans simply outwrestled the Brazilian bomber en route to a unanimous decision win. But Evans insists he’s not a boring fighter and that he was simply mapping out the best route to victory.

“Wrestling was the right gameplan against Rampage and Thiago,” Evans said. “You know, I’m not going to be able to go and wrestle everybody. I may go against someone that’s one of the best jiu-jitsu guys in the world. You think that I’m going to try and wrestle? No. I’m going to try to stand and knock his head off. It’s all about where my opponents take me. 

“I could have gone into the fight with Rampage and realized I couldn’t take him down at all. Do you think I’m going to waste three rounds trying to take him down? No. I’m going to say, ‘We’ve got to throw the hands.’ It’s what my opponents let me do which allows me to do what I'm doing. If Rampage was so versed at stopping me and taking me down, then I would have had to adjust my gameplan. That is just what happens. You have to make adjustments. If you don’t make an adjustment when you’re fighting, you will lose.” 

“I did fall in love with my striking”

In some ways, the fight with Silva actually dictated Evans’ strategy against Jackson. After decimating Silva for the opening two frames, Evans got sloppy in the final round and was nearly finished by a well-placed punching combination.

“I just got lazy,” Evans said. “In the third round, I was taking this guy down at will whenever I wanted to, and he really didn’t have anything for me standing. I mean, I got hit with a couple of good shots and it didn’t hurt, so I kind of lost respect for his punching power and his speed. Then he threw a punch, and I saw it coming and I tried to block it. As I blocked it, it went right past my hand. That punch caught me. It was a huge message to watch my P’s and Q’s for the entire fight.” 

Evans said he had to dig deep within himself to survive the final round of the fight with Silva. “Whenever you’re in a fight and you get hit with a good shot, you’ve got to find yourself and try to recover, then everything comes into play,” Evans says. “All of your training, all of the drills that you’ve done kind of come into play. How am I going to keep my game face on and keep going even though this guy knows that he has me rocked? I’ve got to make sure he doesn’t know how bad he got me rocked.” 

And it’s in precisely those types of moments that Evans knows he can fall back on his wrestling, even if fans don’t necessarily appreciate the effort.

“I did fall in love with my striking, and I thought, ‘You know what man? I see all these dudes, but I’ve got better hands than them. I can go in there and let my hands go. I know I can hang with any of these guys,’” Evans admits. “And I very well could, but that is not making me be the best fighter I can become. Chuck Liddell was a great fighter when he was just standing up, but the greatest Chuck Liddell I’ve seen was the one where he just recently lost to Rich Franklin [at UFC 115]. He looked on point because he was doing his takedowns. He kept Rich not knowing what he was going to do. If Chuck didn’t rush in at the end of the first round, I honestly think he would have won the fight. Franklin would’ve been done, due to Chuck’s ability to use his takedown and keep Franklin off balance. 

“Rich Franklin knew that he was going to stand up and bang with Chuck Liddell. He knew that he was fighting Chuck Liddell, who was going to stand up and fight. He couldn’t even fathom that he was going to get taken down, and when he was taken down, the look of shock on his face, ‘What am I doing down on the ground from a takedown from Chuck Liddell?’”

“Why can’t I use what I’m good at?”

Evans’ critics seem to overlook his UFC 92 win over Forrest Griffin, when his striking earned him a victory over the original TUF winner – not to mention the UFC’s light heavyweight title. The critics who call Evans boring don’t bother to recall his UFC 88 destruction of Liddell or his Ultimate Fight Night 8 highlight-reel finish of Sean Salmon.

Evans knows he’s still capable of delivering striking-filled performances, but his current focus is on becoming as complete a combatant as possible.

“That’s what makes you a well-rounded fighter: add in all the different facets of the sport that you can use,” Evans said. “That is the beauty of mixed martial arts – the fact that you can do jiu-jitsu, you can do Muay Thai, you can do wrestling, you can do boxing and karate and all these different disciplines and then seamlessly weave them all together to make something beautiful. That’s what it’s about, and the people who win – the people who set the example and are best in this game – are the ones who can seamlessly do it, and you just can't tell which discipline they’re doing at the time. Georges St Pierre, Fedor Emelianenko, Anderson Silva, B J Penn – those guys, they switch effortlessly, and that’s what it’s about: becoming well-rounded.

“That’s what I’m trying to work on – to do everything. I can do it all, but it’s about being comfortable with doing it all. Being able to have that confidence and knowing damn well that, no matter what discipline you switch into, you are better than your opponent and you can out-do them and out-trick them in any of those disciplines.”

In his fights with Jackson and Silva, for example, Evans knew his wrestling skills outclassed his opponents’ abilities in the same area. And after unsuccessfully trying to match Lyoto Machida in a striking contest – and losing his UFC light heavyweight title in the process – Evans realized there was no reason to fight outside of his own abilities.

“Why can’t I use what I’m good at?” Evans asks. “Why do I have to subject myself to what my opponent wants to do? If he wants to stand and bang and go toe-to-toe, and I’m like, ‘You know what? I really don’t want to get hit today,’ why can’t I just not want to get hit? Just because I’m a fighter I’ve got to want to get hit? Nobody wants to get hit. 

“If somebody’s only way to beat you is to try to knock you out, why even give them that chance? Make them earn it. If you earn it, then good on you. You’re a better man than me right now because you earned it. I tried to stop you as hard as I could, but you earned it.”

“Who cares if I make a funny face?”

Evans’ next fight is against current UFC lightweight champ, 28-year-old Brazilian Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua. A knee injury to the title holder means a date has yet to be determined, but Evans says he’s OK with waiting. He’ll use the spare time to continue rounding out his arsenal.

“I don’t look at sitting out to be such a setback, as a lot of people do,” Evans says. “In this sport it’s all about getting better in increments, and one of the best ways to get better is to not get better during your training camp but around your training camp – to go to other people’s camps and then learn a lot of techniques, because that’s when it just soaks in effortlessly. That’s when I see a technique, and I say, ‘Oh, I’m going to try it.’ I try it, and I’m like, ‘Damn, it works.’ But when you’re doing it during your training camp, sometimes you try to force it to work – because you want to do it during your fight. You feel like you need to, and then it just doesn’t go. Between fights is the best time to learn and do new stuff.”

But when the learning is over and it’s time to face Rua, Evans insists he’ll be ready. And when he fights, he’ll fight the way he wants to – detractors be damned.

“I like to play, and fighting to me is not about being mad or about being a tough guy,” Evans said. “It’s just about going out there and having fun. I started doing it as a hobby. I was like, ‘Man, fuck it. If I can go out there and do what I want to do for 15 minutes and just have fun doing it, who cares if I make a funny face or do a little stupid dance?’ For me it was just about having fun. Sometimes I like to keep some of that attitude in it where it’s really not that serious.

“I think having fun is what keeps you successful. When I’ve had my greatest fights is when I was just having fun. When I stopped having fun, that’s when fighting became hard to me. That’s when I started to get too cerebral – too analytical – and I started thinking too much about everything. I couldn’t really just flow because I was putting myself in such a tight vice that it was not allowing me to be myself. 

“My honest expression as a human being is not about being ultimately serious all the time. I like to joke around and I like to have fun. I like to act stupid, and what fighting does is it kind of magnifies a certain side of you. Fighting magnifies the little silly side of me. In normal life sometimes I may be a little bit serious, or I may not be silly all the time, but in fighting, I can be stupid.”

And when it comes time to face Rua, you can definitely expect to see a little bit of wrestling. Got a problem with that? Evans says you can feel free to address him directly.

“I want to put some of these people in the cage so they actually learn what happens in there and know the different positions,” Evans said. “Some of this stuff actually does hurt. It may not look like much on TV, but, damn it, it hurts. Like foot stomps – people say, ‘Oh man, foot stomps don't hurt.’ Let somebody step on your goddamn foot. You’ll quit.” 

Urbane Fighting Championship

Rashad on how a dress policy can win the UFC more kudos.

While training and trash-talking were the main focus for the UFC Primetime series that led into Rashad Evans and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson’s highly anticipated UFC 114 showdown, ‘Suga’s passion for tailored suits was exposed when cameras showed him being fitted for suits at a Tom Ford boutique. 

While Evans’ success in the UFC has provided him with the financial means to sport such high-end fashion, the former light heavyweight champion says his desire to display the look is deep-rooted.

“When you wear a suit, for me, it makes me feel like I’m actually really caring how I’m really looking,” Evans said. “When I’m looking good, and people are like, ‘Damn, that guy looks smooth,’ I feel good. 

“When I was growing up, I used to look at people in suits, the businessmen, and I was like, ‘Damn, that guy is slick,’ and that’s how I always wanted be one day. When I get to put on a suit or go somewhere and look like a million bucks, that means the world to me.”

And while the sharp look Evans wears while attending UFC press conferences or when appearing on ESPN’s MMA Live may do wonders to his own self-esteem, Suga also believes it can help improve the image of MMA as a whole.

“As fighters, we have this stigma that we are just a bunch of idiots who go in there, beat each other’s brains out – and really can’t complete a sentence or wipe our own backsides,” Evans says. “The moment you put a suit on, people automatically look at you differently, ‘Wow, this guy has his stuff together.’ They don't see you as some kind of barbarian. They see you as somebody who you might want to do business with. 

“I think once you raise the level of professionalism by wearing suits and doing things to make other people see that, you know what, fighters are not stupid, or fighters have some class, it just brings the sport to a whole different level.”

Psyche!

Did Rashad’s psychology degree play a part in his trash-talking with Rampage?

Evans’ UFC 114 fight with Jackson featured some of the most entertaining trash talk MMA has ever seen leading into a contest. Between the heated discussions often featured on The Ultimate Fighter 10, the Snuggie (it’s one of those ‘blankets with sleeves’) furore on the vastly popular UFC Primetime series and the verbal barbs issued on the now-legendary media call promoting the event, Evans and Jackson engaged in several intense arguments.

Evans says at least some of the insults were hurled with a strategic result in mind.

“I’d be lying to say it was all 100% psychological warfare, but I know what triggers him,” Evans said. “I know what bothers him, so I was saying things that I knew would bother him, but there were times where I did get caught up in it a little more than I wanted to just because I didn’t agree with anything that he was saying, and it… kind of pissed me off. 

“With all of that, you do try to remain focused, keep the task what it is and not make it bigger than what it is or anything like that. But when somebody’s talking trash like that, and it’s going back and forth, the tempers get in the way, and sometimes things tend to get out of hand.”

And during those moments Evans said it’s imperative to relax if you hope to remain in control.

“You have to be worried about getting caught up in the trash talk because if you’re not worried about getting caught up in it, that’s when you really get caught up in it and won’t even notice,” Evans says. “You have to kind of be able to have your checks and balances and laugh off some of the stuff. That’s what kept me cool. Some of the stuff he said, I just laughed about it to myself because it was funny. I didn’t get too serious about it.”

The Afro-American MMA revolution

Jon Jones, Phil Davis, Anthony Johnson – what’s with the new influx of superb black fighters, Rashad?

UFC 114: Rampage vs Evans was one of the UFC’s most successful pay-per-view events in company history. The natural feud between the card’s main-event participants was largely responsible for its reported financial success.

But seemingly lost among the hoopla was the fact that Rashad Evans and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson were paired as the UFC’s first-ever African-American headliners.

In retrospect, Evans says he was honored to be a part of the historic affair.

“It was special to me,” Evans said. “I think that Quinton and I did everything to bring attention to this fight. Our simple dislike for each other made this fight something much more than what it really could have been. To be the first two black fighters headlining a card with all that attention and no belt or anything on the line, that was beautiful, man. That was beautiful because it shows where black people can go in the sport. Before, mixed martial arts was known as a white sport. There weren’t a lot of people of color or African-Americans doing it. But now, black kids can see it and say, ‘I want to start doing that.’ Now it can start to make some waves in the black community.”

And Evans said the education of blacks regarding mixed martial arts is already coming in some very unique ways. “When I’m in Chicago, and whenever I’m out and about in the city, all the black kids know who I am,” Evans said. “They wrestle in the backyard, and they’re not doing WWE moves. They’re doing like triangles and guillotines and kicks – stuff they’ve seen in the video game (THQ’s UFC Undisputed). It’s helping in the knowledge of the sport. People are really starting to be educated on what is what just by playing the video game.

“I had the rapper Soulja Boy tell me, ‘You’re my favorite fighter.’ I thought he had seen some of my fights. He was like, ‘No, man. I play with you all the time in the game.’ Soulja Boy knew me because he had seen me all the time in the game. That’s cool.”

UFC Undisputed 2010 is out now from THQ.