UFC 114: Quinton Jackson vs. Rashad Evans Carrying The Card

This Saturday UFC 114 looks to be one of the most heavily anticipated mixed martial arts events of 2010 and there are no titles on the line.

The only thing on the line is pride. 

It is truly amazing how much hype can be generated when an individual's pride is on the line.

The level of trash talking and general disregard between the main event competitors Quinton Jackson and Rashad Evans is second to none. Bad blood has been brewing between the two since Jackson beat Keith Jardine back in March 2009.

After Jackson beat Jardine, Evans walked into the ring and the two stood face to face spewing insults and big talk, left, right and center.

Evans was originally supposed to defend his light heavyweight title against the former champion Jackson, but Jackson was forced to step aside due to injury and Lyoto Machida stepped in.

All was not lost.

Rashad Evans lost the title to Lyoto Machida and the UFC brass set Jackson and Evans up as coaches on The Ultimate Fighter Season 10.

Fans really got an in-depth look at how much disdain the two light heavyweights actually have for each other.

Jackson’s team was soundly defeated with only one of his eight fighters moving onto the quarterfinals.

If anything, The Ultimate Fighter Season 10 served as a booster for Rashad’s confidence and a source of extreme frustration for Jackson due to the way the season played out. The fact that Jackson’s coaching talents were being heavily criticized by cast members, fans and Team Rashad's coaching staff must not have sat well with him.

Ultimately the two were supposed to square off on December 12th at UFC 107, however, due to Jackson’s commitment to the A-Team movie where he will be portraying B.A. Baracus the fight had to be cancelled indefinitely.

In addition to the fight being called off at UFC 107, Jackson announced his retirement from fighting and fans were a bit worried that this highly anticipated grudge match would never take place.

Jackson decided a few months ago that he would continue fighting and his first fight back would be against Rashad Evans.

Originally thought to be scheduled for UFC 113 in Montreal, true to its nature the fight was rescheduled once again for UFC 114 in Las Vegas after over a year of anticipation. Barring any freak accidents or injuries it seems like Jackson and Evans are finally ready to butt heads and back up all the trash that has been talked.

Clearly there has been a lot of build up to the main event for UFC 114. The hype generated by the tension between Evans and Jackson is so strong that their fight is pretty much supporting the card. This isn’t to say there aren’t going to be great fights throughout the night this weekend.

Although the card is chalk full of The Ultimate Fighter series champions in Evans, Michael Bisping, Diego Sanchez, Amir Sadollah and Efrain Escudero, three of those series champions are coming off a loss.

After The Ultimate Fighter champions, we are looking at a mixed bag of fighters who seem to be coming off of losses or fighters who have looked good thus far, but are relatively young in their UFC careers.

To help push the main event to possible record breaking status the UFC has put together one of their three episode UFC Primetime series showcasing Evans’ and Jackson’s training camps thus far and acquainting us once again with the sharp tongues that have helped carve a hole in each fighters’ ego.

UFC Primetime debuted prior to UFC 94: St. Pierre vs. Penn 2 and last was used to help promote UFC 111: St. Pierre vs Hardy. Both UFC 94 and UFC 111 had pay-per-view buy rates of over 700,000.

UFC Primetime seems to be the vehicle of choice when it comes to promoting fights between fighters who want to talk trash.

Georges St. Pierre isn’t exactly a potty mouth when it comes to discussing his opponents, but both BJ Penn and Dan Hardy, Georges' UFC 94 and UFC 111 opponents know how to talk trash with the best of them.

With the energy and bad intentions already surrounding the matchup between Evans and Jackson, don’t be surprised if the UFC Primetime series pushes the UFC 114 pay-per-view over the one million buy mark.

In terms of how the fight will pan out, it is a difficult prediction to make. In terms of pure athleticism and conditioning, Evans has the upper hand due to his training with strength and conditioning coach Jonathan Chaimberg. For those who don’t know, Chaimberg is the same guy Georges St. Pierre used to turn himself into the high performance machine that he is today.

Jackson brings a strong chin to the table along with a good wrestling base and crisp boxing. Overall, Jackson is the more experienced fighter and has a few strengths on his side that Evans lacks. That being said, Rashad’s dedication seems to be on another level in comparison to Jacskon’s and it will be interesting to see how that plays into the fight.

Rashad’s strategy will be to take Jackson down and control him on the ground. 

If he wants to boost his ego it would serve him well to flash off that newly acquired Rolles Gracie black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Jackson, on the other hand, has to work hard to stay off his back and outpoint Rashad with his boxing. If he wants to boost his ego he should try to work in one of those bone crushing slams or highlight reel knockouts.

It is really a question of who is able to implement their game plan best and the fighter that will implement their game plan is the fighter who wants the win the most whether it be Jackson or Evans.

There are some great matchups for UFC 114 and fight fans should be satisfied, but at the end of the day the main story line is going to be based on the main event.

Is Jackson going to unleash a rampage on Evans? Or will Evans be showing up to the postfight press conference flashing a smile and one of his new suits?