UFC 133 Results: Early Breakdown of Rashad Evans vs. Jon Jones

After all the injuries and all the hype, UFC 133 is finally in the books. Vitor Belfort proved far too skilled for Yoshihiro Akiyama in the event's co-main event, and in the main event, Rashad Evans ended Tito Ortiz's Cinderella story.

With this victory, Evans is now primed and ready to face the winner of the light heavyweight title fight between champion Jon "Bones" Jones and challenger Quinton "Rampage" Jackson.

Jones is the heavy favorite in their contest and he will in all likelihood prevail. So what would a fight between the former friends and training partners, Evans and Jones, look like? Read and find out!

Experience: Rashad Evans

It may perhaps be common for casual MMA fans to proclaim young prospects like Jones "inexperienced." In fact, Evans has only four more fights than Jones—18 to Jones' 14.

However, Evans is more experienced against high competition than Jones is, having been a champion and having fought four former champions in Chuck Liddell, Forrest Griffin, Lyoto Machida and Rampage Jackson.

This adds an additional dimension to Rashad's experience advantage. He has fought on the big stage before, and the fabled "Octagon jitters" will be of no concern to him; he has been in the main event in his last seven fights.

Jones, on the other hand, has only Ryan Bader and a visibly rusty Mauricio "Shogun" Rua as feathers in his cap and has only been a headliner three times; two of those were minor events on Versus.

Therefore, the edge in experience has to go to Rashad Evans.

Conditioning: Evans

It is a famous saying that conditioning is the best technique of all. So which of these two fighters has the better conditioning?

The only reason why Evans can be given the nod here is because we have seen him go the distance many more times than Jones has. Evans has gone the distance nine times in his career, while Jones has only done so twice.

While this can be attributed to the difference in skill between Jones and his opponents, it can still be said that we have not seen the conditioning of "Bones" truly tested yet.

Chin: Jones (Although We Have Never Seen It Tested)

Rashad Evans is unfortunate enough to have a picture of him unconscious, bloody and, quite frankly, looking like a zombie circulating all over the Internet thanks to Lyoto Machida. Out of respect to Evans, it won't be placed in this slideshow (although any MMA fan worth their salt knows what I'm talking about).

We have also seen Evans get rocked in fights against Thiago Silva and Rampage Jackson.

Jon Jones is a fighter who has long enough reach and strong enough strikes to put Evans down and keep him there.

Nevertheless, Jones' chin has not been tested, not even in his fight against Shogun. Even if it does turn out that Jones does have a suspect chin, it is doubtful that Evans is the one to put Jones' lights out.

This is due to the significant reach difference and the fact that the only fighters Evans has cleanly knocked out were Forrest Griffin, Chuck Liddell, Sean Salmon and Jason Lambert—two fighters with less than stellar chins and two journeymen who aren't even with the UFC.

Training Camp: Jones

This one is obvious. Greg Jackson's MMA training camp is considered one of the top, if not the top, MMA gyms in the world.

While Evans has established a formidable training camp at Imperial Athletics along with Mike Van Arsdale and is also training with legendary kickboxer Tyrone Spong, the advantage in training camp still belongs to Jon Jones.

Simply put, Jones has access to better training partners and better coaches. Thus, he will be better prepared and have a better game plan.

Superior Skill Set: Jones

What is meant by "superior skill set" is which fighter has the best skills to defeat the other. The answer is Jon Jones by far.

Jones has battered every opponent that has come from a wrestling background; Rashad Evans comes from a wrestling background.

Matt Hamill, Vladimir Matyushenko, Brandon Vera (who primarily fights as a striker but was an accomplished Greco-Roman wrestler) and Ryan Bader were all helpless against Jones' takedowns and could not use their wrestling to return to their feet for a prolonged amount of time once smothered by Jones.

It is likely that the same thing would happen to Rashad Evans.

In terms of striking, the questionable chin of Evans has been covered in detail and will not be discussed here; suffice it to say that Jones has long enough arms to hit Rashad before he can even contemplate a takedown.

Evans' recent (T)KO victories have come over opponents that did not seek to wrestle and were trying to strike with him. This would probably not be the case when he fights Jones, who has taken down most of his opponents.

Even worse for Evans, Jones has an incredible top game and ground and pound via elbows. Evans has nothing off his back to speak of.

Evans would, to use Chael Sonnen's words, "be on his back like a prostitute with a mortgage," and would be suffering under the brutal ground and pound of Jones.

Psychological Edge: Evans

It is possible that, as we saw with GSP vs. Serra I, Jones will win the title and then either buy in his own hype or not take his opponent seriously and lose decisively against a challenger.

On the other hand, Evans would certainly be fired up to fight Jones.

The title shot that Jones is getting was supposed to go to Evans, who was painstakingly waiting for Shogun's knee to heal but then got injured himself. The title shot was then given to Jones, perhaps the hottest prospect in MMA history.

This has to be psychologically eating away at Evans. All of the fame, all of the attention and all of the praise that he could have had is instead going to a younger, seemingly better fighter who is perhaps undeserving in Evans' mind.

All of this would be sure to inspire Rashad Evans like he has never been inspired before. He will want to validate his decision to leave Jackson's camp and make Jackson regret he backed Jones instead.

Rashad Evans will make himself a very dangerous man if he has to fight Jon Jones.

And Your Winner Is...

Jon Jones

But the fight (while lasts) would be closer than people think.

Despite the advantage in experience and motivation, the gap in skill level would be too much for Evans to overcome.

We have seen Jones dismantle and ground and pound solid, accomplished wrestlers, and this fight would be no different.

The last time Evans fought someone who was trying to take him down were his two fights against Tito Ortiz—the first of which ended in a draw because Ortiz lost a point for grabbing the cage in 2007. Evans was victorious the second time around but a victory over an over-the-hill Ortiz doesn't say much (and Evans was even taken down during the fight).

All of Evans' victories since then have been over fighters who prefer to strike.

Even if Jones decides to strike, he would still have enough reach and power to hurt Evans to then pounce and deliver a TKO via elbows, or maybe even submit him as he did with Ryan Bader.

The fight would end on the ground late in the second or early in the first, regardless of whether Jones chooses to stand or go to the ground.