The decline begins
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Jones vs. Evans took place in April 2012 and it would be almost a year before we’d see Rashad again. No injuries were reported during that time, so the likelihood is that Evans was simply honing his skills and biding his time.
A match against former PRIDE star Antonio Rogerio Nogueira was announced for UFC 156 and Evans was made the betting favourite with his speed, power and wrestling game favoured over Nogueira’s clean boxing and submission skills.
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Instead, another chink in Rashad’s armour was revealed.
Where Machida had beaten Evans by managing distance, and Jones had won by abusing the shorter man with his freakish reach and outpowering him in the clinch, Nogueira won simply by having a more crisp jab. Rashad seemingly had no answer for the cleaner boxing game, even with his speed advantage.
It was the worst performance in Rashad’s career to that point and was the first real sign that a decline of his career might’ve begun.
A win over Chael Sonnen followed in November 2013, and the aggressive Rashad from the Ortiz fight appeared to be back. A February 2014 meeting with Daniel Cormier was set up and sounded like a genuinely intriguing fight.
That was when disaster really struck.
A knee injury forced Evans out of the fight and put him on the shelf “indefinitely”. He spent a year away before revealing he was still injured when a January 2015 fight with Alexander Gustafsson was proposed.
A February meeting with Glover Teixeira was also shelved when both men suffered injuries. For Rashad, it meant yet another period of over six months out.
When he finally returned to face Ryan Bader in October 2015, it had almost been two years since the Sonnen fight. Against Bader, he didn’t look like the same fighter at all. He was beaten to the punch by a man, who a few years ago, would’ve been considerably slower than Rashad, and it seemed like he was struggling to pull the trigger, too.
It could’ve been ring rust, but just a few months later he was knocked clean out by Glover Teixeira – another man who wouldn’t have come close to beating Rashad to the punch a handful of years ago.
Following the loss, Rashad took the same path that many before him have done – he decided to move down a weight class, to 185lbs, feeling he’d be better with a size advantage than the speed advantage he had – or used to have – over most of the 205lbs division.
The UFC then booked Rashad with Tim Kennedy, but twice the fight was cancelled due to a lingering – and still unknown – medical issue for Rashad, who claimed he’d fought with it for his entire career. No definitive answer has ever been suggested for what this issue is.
When the UFC found an athletic commission that would clear Evans – Texas – he was matched with Dan Kelly, a tough fighter with a cult following, largely due to the fact that he’s not the most athletically gifted fighter on the roster. In other words, fodder for the 2010/11 version of Rashad.
Instead, we saw the same gunshy Rashad who fought Ryan Bader. Kelly was able to beat him to the punch, stayed more active throughout the fight, and even took the former Champion down a handful of times.
Immediately after, fans were calling for Rashad’s retirement. He’s clearly declined from his peak, but what exactly caused that decline, and can it be turned around?
