Interviews Eric Jamison/Associated Press

Published on May 25th, 2019 | by Guest Contributor

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Rashad Evans Details His Journey From “Tuf” Season Two Winner to UFC Hall Of Famer!

The fight game for most is a never-ending roller coaster ride of extreme highs as well as extreme lows. Former UFC light heavyweight champion, Rashad Evans has experienced both.

Rashad Evans joined the cast of “The Ultimate Fighter” during it’s second season as a heavyweight. Although he was the shortest competitor there and the second lightest in weight of the 9-competitors in the “TUF House,” you could see right away that he was a star destined to shine bright despite his size disadvantage. The 5’10 ½ Evans, defeated 6’7 Brad Imes to win the show, which earned him a contract with the UFC. “Sugar” went on a tear after moving down to his more natural weight of light heavyweight (205-pound division). His defining moment came at UFC 88 when he knocked out former light heavyweight kingpin, Chuck Liddell with a single right hand. It was truly the shot heard around the world and it catapulted, Evans career. In 2008 at UFC 92, Evans won by technical knockout over, Forrest Griffin to become the UFC light heavyweight champion of the world. On May 29th, 2010, Rashad and long-time bitter rival Rampage Jackson became the first two African American’s to headline a UFC main event. Following a stellar career, Rashad announced his retirement from MMA on May 18th, 2019. The UFC will induct Evans into their Hall of Fame on July 5th!

I recently caught up with Evans who recalls his greatest moment inside of the Octagon, opens up about still having the itch to fight and breaks down his Hall of Fame career!

Hype Magazine: Our very first interview was published on January 12th, 2007, right after you won The Ultimate Fighter season two. It’s a please and honor to speak to you 12-years later as a UFC Hall of Fame inductee. Has it set in yet for you?

Rashad Evans: It hits me and then I forget about it, and then I think about it again and it hits me all over again in a different way. That’s been the most fun part about it is just this experience that I’m speaking of. How I’m feeling about it. I didn’t expect for me to feel about it the way that I feel about it and that’s been a pleasant surprise to me. It’s something that I didn’t know how I was going to feel, but now that it’s happened, I’m really enjoying it.

Hype Magazine: For them to make that announcement in New York where you are from and to get the ovation you received, that had to make the announcement even more special for you.

Rashad Evans: They really gave it up for me and it felt like everything came full circle. Rochester… it’s all so funny because Rochester was where I really started to cut my teeth as a wrestler. My first tournament was a tournament out that way in Rochester, so yeah, it was good to go there and have the circle of competition become complete and be announced as a Hall of Famer in Rochester, ya know.

Hype Magazine: One of the things I remember about speaking to a young, Rashad Evans was your energy. You brought so much energy into that cage and I could tell that fighting was something you was really excited about.

Rashad Evans: Man, for me, fighting was the most important thing and I just loved to compete to the point where I didn’t care how big the guys were at heavyweight. It didn’t matter to me how big they were. I liked the challenge and for people to say I couldn’t do it. It just made me want to fight even harder. I had a lot of energy towards fighting because I had a lot to prove and a lot inside of me. During those days fighting came to me very easy. It was second nature and it was such a fun time because, even though I had the nerves and the jitters and stuff that most fighters feel, but for the most part, I was a true fighter in the fact that it was all I wanted to do. I was completely obsessed about it. And that obsession of a fighter is what fueled me to be great because fighting became my best friend. It’s a special relationship that me and fighting had that I’m going to miss. I’ve had a many opportunities to do a lot of things when I was coming up in the game to give my attention to now. Fighting was always there and would kind of always alarm me, that if you stay on this path it would pay off big dividends. I just followed that passion and where it led me is to somewhere that I never thought I would be.

Hype Magazine: You also brought a fire to the sport that martial artists can have beef and trash talk and have charisma and it not be looked at as a bad thing.

Rashad Evans: Absolutely! When I was fighting, man… fighting for me was… I was a born fighter. I have been fighting on the street for a long time. I have been fighting my whole life. Fighting to me was always a chance to embarrass somebody. It’s somebody trying to test their skills against my skills, and I was going to show them that they stand no chance. And while I show them that they stand no chance, I’m going to talk trash about them, talk trash to them and get inside of their head and make them feel bad. For me it wasn’t enough for me to beat you. I wanted to beat you mentally, ya know.

Hype Magazine: Is it weird to you yet saying it in the past tense, “When I was fighting,” or “When I was a fighter.”

Rashad Evans: (Laughing) it is, man. I look in the mirror and I still got a lot of fight in me left. I look and I see that I can still have a lot of fight in me left just from a physical standpoint. But I know that my time has passed, and I know that that time is over and I’m okay with that. But sometimes when I look in the mirror real quick, I do want to go to the gym and strap on some 16’s (gloves) and see what the best guy has to give (laughing).

Hype Magazine: I’m sure that will always be there. I gotta put you on the spot and ask, was it the, Sean Salmon head kick, knocking out, Chuck Liddell, beating Rampage, winning the title from, Forrest Griffin or something else. What was the highlight of your career in your opinion?

Rashad Evans: You know, I would say it’s the, Chuck Liddell moment not just for the way of how it ended. You can’t ignore how it ended, but for it was the first time I started to step into the mastery level of my skill. Every athlete no matter who they are, we all learn skills and we all learn techniques and at the end of the day, we walk away learning what we want to learn and what we want to make our style and our game. Now, until an athlete reaches a level of perfection where he had 10,000 or more hours in there to where he’s a master of those said techniques, he hasn’t really stepped into his full potential as a fighter. When you see guys step into their mastery, you see guys go on runs like you see a, Max Holloway, Tony Ferguson, Jon Jones or a Daniel Cormier. Any of these guys that you see who are in their groove. That’s when you are seeing these guys in their mastery. When I was in my mastery… I started to step into it with the, Chuck Liddell fight, it was a big moment for me. Because I stopped being that scared fighter that I was up until that point. I came out to a song by, Immortal Technique for that fight and it was really the exact thing that happened. The song is called, “The Point of No Return.” That song right there pretty much signified what would be the rest of my life and my career. I knew at that point, after I walked out of those curtains, my life was not going to be the same no more whether I won that fight or lost that fight. I just need to decide how I wanted that life to be. At the end it was just me letting go and saying, fuck it. Just letting it go.

Hype Magazine: Stay with me, but I have to name these guys, Glover Teixeira, Ryan Bader, Chael Sonnen, Chuck Liddell, Dan Henderson, Lil Nog, Jon Jones, Phil Davis, Tito Ortiz, Rampage Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Forrest Griffin, Michael Bisping and Stephan Bonnar. When anyone looks at that resume, they have to think you were crazy, chasing greatness or a combination of the two.

Rashad Evans: (Laughing). Yeah, that’s a great resume for people to compete against, ya know. That’s what I always said, I never knew if I was going to win every fight. I started off really-really hot. But I have always said, win, lose or draw I just always wanted to say that I competed against the best at all times. When people look back, they can say, “We need to put, Rashad in there because he did compete against this guy and this guy.” I competed against some thorough athletes in my day and I’m very proud that I did that. from close losses to big knockout, at the end of the day, I stepped in there with these guys and we went toe to toe and these guys were some of the biggest giants of my days.

Hype Magazine: Do you have any regrets about your career?

Rashad Evans: Apart from the fight that as an athlete I always think about the fight that I could have done more because I still feel like… it goes back to the like to compete part. As a totality, no. I don’t think that there is anything that I have regrets about just off of the fact that, where I am in my life right now is exactly where I need to be. I have taken some bumps along the way and I earned those bumps, those heartaches and those disappointments. I earned those defeats and I’ve earned those lessons that’s come along with them. Those lessons are so valuable and worth so much that I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.

Hype Magazine: Given the resume I just named this may be a silly question, but is there anyone you wished you had shared the Octagon with that you didn’t get a chance to share it with?

Rashad Evans: Yeah, I would have loved to fight, Shogun, man. I wish I would’ve fought, Shogun just because we were scheduled to fight a couple of times. One being for the title, but he was somebody I had a tremendous amount of respect for. He was one of those fighters that, when I got into the game of fighting, I was watching him. He kind of struck a little fear in my heart and that’s what made me want to chase it and go after that fear like, “Oh yeah, I bet I can beat you.” I would have had to conquer that fear. That’s one of those things that makes you compete against guys like that.

Hype Magazine: Have you wrapped your mind around your speech and the emotions that you are expecting to feel as you are inducted?

Rashad Evans: Ah man, I haven’t even wrapped my mind around the speech, man. I’m going to start putting it together right now, so that way it’s capturing everything the way I want to capture it. There are so many people along the way who has done such a good job to help me when they didn’t have to. That’s what it comes down to. It comes down to, here is a kid from Niagara Falls, New York who didn’t have a lot, but for whatever reason, a couple of people seen something in him and they wanted to push him and get him to see that same thing that they saw and get him to achieve. And that story is important because that story resonates through America. That story is the story of hope and the story of the American dream and it’s a story that is often forgotten in today’s society. The more we remind ourselves… yeah, I may take that road because I’m a fighter, but at the end of the day, we are all fighters. We are all fighting for the same thing which is to be happy in life. Which is to find the reason why we are truly here. Why we really exist. What is this expression of our existence?

Hype Magazine: Congratulations on the honor, I’m extremely happy for you and proud of you and we have done some classic interviews over the years and I look to continue them. Is there anything else you want to add before I let you go?

Rashad Evans: Nah, my man. I’m good right now. I just want to say to you, I appreciate you. There is not a lot of us out there in the game doing journalism and I appreciate you for making sure that you always gave your brothers a fair shake. A lot of people that are fair weather fans and they will go and say some things about you when you get up or down, but I can honestly say because I’ve been looking, you always held me down with your journalism and I appreciate that.

By Percy Crawford

 

Featured Image: Eric Jamison/Associated Press



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