Rashad: Jon Jones ducked me, he knows it and I know it
Rashad Evans recently appeared on Pro MMA Radio and discussed the latest in his feud with Jon Jones. On Jon…
Rashad Evans recently appeared on Pro MMA Radio and discussed the latest in his feud with Jon Jones.
On Jon Jones pulling out of the fight with an injury
“I questioned it internally but what I didn’t want to do was go out there and say ‘Oh, he’s scared of me!’ because any time I say something it always gets picked up and it messes with my legitimacy. I don’t want to say too much because people always get worked up about it. I didn’t say anything about it because I can’t win.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind Jon ducked me in this fight. Jon knows it and I know it. There’s really know way around it. It’s hard for me to imagine with Jon thinking he’s so great and that he thinks he can beat me but it’s just odd. When you don’t take a fight with somebody for one reason or another, that’s one thing, but to make up an injury, say you have an injury and you go as far as to say you’ll have surgery and then you don’t have it. That’s clearly a sign that you don’t want to fight somebody.”
On the nightclub scuffle
“I saw Jon this past week at the fighter summit and we were at the same location. He pulled me to the side and he said ‘Rashad, I need to talk to you, I think things are getting out of control.’ I thought it was pretty mature for the young guy instead of just ignoring me. First thing he said was ‘I just wanna be the first to tell you is I’m gonna destroy you, I’m gonna annihilate you and I’m gonna show the world you’re overrated. I’m gonna punish you and you’ll be my first highlight reel knockout’ and I just started laughing.
“You brought me out here to tell me you’re gonna destroy me? Let’s not even talk about how stupid that sounds. Why would you wanna come way over here to say that in private. Furthermore, how did you even come up with that? He’s like ‘Rashad, remember when I was catching you with knees and elbows in training’ but I said ‘I was simulating Bader. I wasn’t trying to beat you, Jon. I was simulating Bader and what he might do’ I told him, ‘do you remember when I held you down and I was slapping you and punching you in the face and you were underneath me and you couldn’t move and then you looked me in the eye and said ‘Ok, can we get up now?’ and I said ‘No Jon, if you quit now, you’ll quit in the fight. You gotta earn your way up,” so we fought some more and you couldn’t move some more and you said ‘can you help me?’ and I said ‘No, you have to earn your way up’ and we go for a little bit longer and you still can’t get up so you roll on your back to let me choke you out thinking I’d let you up and be satisfied with that but I didn’t. I continued to make you work up.’ I said ‘do you remember that?’ and he said “yeah, I remember that’ and I said ‘that’s why you don’t want to fight me’ and he was just lost for words for a second and he told me, ‘Rashad, you just motivating me. You don’t know what you started’ and it just went like that and it just ended when a couple people from our parties separated the two of us. He couldn’t let it go.”