Rashad Evans Explains His Motivation To Drop To Middleweight

In an interview with UFC Unfiltered, Rashad Evans (19-5-1 MMA, 14-5-1 UFC) spoke about his decision to drop to middleweight. His debut in the division will be at UFC 205 against Tim Kennedy (18-5 MMA, 3-1 UFC). The event happens on November 12 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Here are highlights:

On his decision to drop to 185: “Dropping to 185 is the best thing for me because for the first time I’ve got to really make sure I’m doing everything correctly as far as taking care of my weight. I’ve been flirting around with the idea for years now. I never was the biggest light heavyweight. I’d come in maybe five or 10 pounds (over the 205-pound limit) at the most on fight week. Meanwhile my competition was coming in 15, 20 pounds heavy. So they were cutting a lot more. When you’re in there and you’re going, you don’t really feel it. But at the same time, I don’t have that, ‘Get over here, I’m going to slam this mother(expletive)’ strength. That’s what I was missing, and I feel it had a lot to do with just the weight and how strong I was and my size for that weight class. I had to really make a change and just having new competition, having to feel like the new kid on the block and have to earn my way through another division and pretty much just reinvent myself was my motivation to really want to do it.”

On his fight with Tim Kennedy: “I remember his whole style, I remember his rhythm, and I’m glad I had it, but he also remembers me. And that’s pretty much what this fight’s going to break down too. Who has gotten better in the areas when we were apart? When we were going together, he was more or less a training partner. So for him, I don’t think he was giving it his all like if it was him going through camp. He’s trying to lightly talk (expletive) to me, saying, ‘Oh Rashad, he asked for me.’ Dude, we’re in the fight business. This is what we do. This is how we eat. I love to fight. I don’t choose it because I hate it. I love to fight. If the UFC comes to me and says they want me to fight such and such, if he’s not a really close friend and mine and we’re not teammates, then yeah, I’m going to fight you. This is what we do. We fight. I’m sorry. This is just the business. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect you.”