Evans: I thought my career was over
Rashad Evans: “It was like everything I had done to that point was all for nothing…That’s how I felt. I felt like I just wasted a year of my life. It was a very humbling experience.”
It has been more than fifteen months since Rashad Evans last stepped into the Octagon as he has been dealing with a knee injury, and at times thought that could his career could be over:
It was like everything I had done to that point was all for nothing, Evans said. That’s how I felt. I felt like I just wasted a year of my life. It was a very humbling experience.
Evans was expected to face Daniel Cormier in early 2014, but he suffered a knee injury and was pulled from the UFC 170 booking. Evans would undergo surgery to address an injured knee, and extensive rehab followed. However, in the same fashion as Dominick Cruz, Evans’ body rejected a cadaver ACL, and he was forced to undergo a second surgery.
At 35 years old and on the sidelines for some 15 months already, an admittedly depressed Evans began to wonder if perhaps his fighting career was over.
You think, ‘Damn, is this how I’m going to go out? Is this going to be the end of me?’ Evans admitted. I never, ever thought I would be in that situation, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is just how it ends.’
You never know when you step into the octagon when will be your last time.