UFC 145's Rashad Evans says he's got the mental advantage on Jon Jones into Title showdown

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Rashad Evans is less than a month away from once again fighting for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship, almost three years after losing the belt to Lyoto Machida. This title fight means everything to Evans, not only because of what's at stake, but because it's against his former training partner Jon Jones.

That former relationship has played heavily into conversation about this fight over the last year, and rightfully so, and it continues to do so in the final month before the fight. Evans believes, despite Jones' immense talent, that he's going to be in his head, and knows what he needs to do to get Jones off his game on April 21.

"I've got the advantage mentally," Evans said in an interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal. "He's not 'Jon Jones, unbeatable champion' to me. I know the real Jon, the nervous kid who would ask me to tell him how to dress, how to talk and how to fight. I know how he reacts when things don't go his way, how he can't handle it mentally."

Evans also reiterated his talking point about Jones' training camp, and how he feels he knows what Jones is working on from his many years with Greg Jackson's team in Albuquerque.

"I know all about him, all about his coaches and all about his camp," Evans said. "I could probably tell you what he's doing in the gym right now. He's in the exact same environment doing the exact same things with the exact same people. But I'm in a different environment, I knew I had to learn, had to mix things up, and I had to change. Jon has no idea what I will do on the night."

Penick's Analysis: The element of surprise as far as what he's been working on since leaving Jackson's is what Evans has going for him, but whether that's enough to overcome the advantages physically that Jones brings into the fight remains to be seen. The UFC Light Heavyweight Champion has had to quickly grow up inside the cage, and this fight is just as important to him as it is to Evans. It's a huge main event for the UFC, and will be made even bigger with the UFC Primetime series that will accompany it leading into the event in April. This feud will finally come to a head in just a few short weeks, and we'll see whether it's Evans or Jones who has changed more since they last trained together.

[Rashad Evans art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]

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