UFC 133: Rashad Evans and the Importance of Being Active

At UFC 133, Rashad Evans will be in the exact opposite position he was in the last time he stepped into the octagon. He will be over a year removed from his last fight, and his opponent will have fought recently.

At UFC 114, Rashad Evans fought and beat an overmatched Quinton Jackson. Several things came into play on fight night.

The first was the hype that was put into the fight because of The Ultimate Fighter, as the two had been coaches and had shown real animosity towards each other.

The second was that Jackson looked really sluggish and rumors came out that most of the training camp had been about getting him back into shape instead of coming up with a game plan to beat Rashad.

The third was that Jackson had taken time off to do the "A-Team" movie and hadn’t fought in over a year, whereas Evans had beaten Thiago Silva just five months before to get a title shot.

At the same time, Tito Ortiz was coming off a loss to Griffin in his first fight back in the UFC and only a few months away from a decision loss to Matt Hamill.

The outcome was obvious by the second round. The time off had made Jackson less competitive and against the sharp and active Evans he just couldn’t pull the trigger.

After the fight, Rashad was primed for a title shot and Rampage had to go back to the drawing board. As for Ortiz, he was getting ready to be shipped off to the fighter retirement home.

Now a year later, Rashad is fighting for a title shot against Ortiz and Jackson is fighting Jones for the championship in September.

It seems like Evans is facing the same opponent this Saturday that Jackson did back at UFC 114.

Activity.

Evans' problem was he wanted his title shot, and once he got it, didn’t want anything to jeopardize it. At the time, Shogun Rua was the champ and had to undergo knee surgery after his second fight with Machida.

Instead of taking an interim fight, Evans waited. When he was finally given a shot, it was his knee that blew out this time and Jon Jones replaced him.

Evans had to sit on the sidelines as his teammate won the title. Then, after the Jones-Evans fallout they were scheduled to fight.

And then Jones came down with a hand injury.

Just like that Rashad’s title shot was gone. Just like that he had wasted a year of his life outside of the octagon. And just like that Rashad Evans had to step into a cage that was a far cry from when he had left it.

Rampage had built up a few wins and earned a title shot. Ortiz had won a crushing victory over Ryan Bader earning him main-event status again. Jon Jones was the champion.

All of these things changed, while Rashad Evans remained the same.

A blade that isn’t sharpened grows dull. A prizefighter who doesn’t compete grows sluggish.

Rashad admitted on an episode of MMA Live a while back that he wished he had taken an interim fight before fighting for the title.

Now he doesn’t even have that, and after this Saturday, he may even have less.