Jones: I am going to go turbo on Rashad, for the first time
While it is true that the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in the cage, training and…
While it is true that the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in the cage, training and fighting are different. Many times before the ‘divorce’ that saw Evans leave Jackson’s MMA and set up a new camp at Imperial Athletics in Florida, current UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and former UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans sparred, rolled, and trained together .
By most accounts, in early 2012 Jones and Evans will face off for real, with the title on the line. The level of respect and care that makes gym training possible will be gone, with nothing left but the twin desires to win, and for the other to lose.
The pre fight trash talk has been unprecedented, and continues. He’s flapping his gums, talking to himself, to try and convince himself that he’s ready and he has this and he has that over me, Jones told MMAWeekly.com in an exclusive interview in Washington, DC, last week.
Rashad is saying he has my number, he knows what he can do, and he knows all this stuff. I know all this stuff as well (about him). I do really good on improv. I’m excited to see what I can do with somebody I’ve went with several times before.
When I spar my team, there’s a level of respect that’s always there. To let that clutch off for the first time and go into turbo mode on him, it’s gonna be interesting. I know where he’s open and I know where he’s gonna try and take the fight.
Even on a marketing standpoint, me and Rampage do all this selling fights and then Rashad comes in and markets himself right in the middle of my big day (immediately after defeating Rampage at UFC 135). I don’t like you, you don’t like me, stay off my special night. Now all the Endicott (N.Y.) kids are starting to figure, ‘oh, who’s Rashad Evans? It’s the guy that shows up at every Jon Bones Jones fight.’
He’s just flappin’ his gums and talking to himself to try and convince himself that he’s ready and that he has this and he has that over me.
(Evans) went to school for psychology. I think I’m gonna prove in this fight that my psychology is together as well. I’ll be able to exploit lots of things in Rashad Evans. Rampage just prepared me for Rashad.