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Amadi's Take
AMADI: The enigmatic success of Rashad Evans leaves questions into UFC 133 bout with Tito Ortiz
Aug 2, 2011 - 1:30:10 PM
AMADI: The enigmatic success of Rashad Evans leaves questions into UFC 133 bout with Tito Ortiz
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By: Jason Amadi, MMATorch Columnist

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Mixed martial arts is far from an exact science, and because of that, there are a number of success stories within the sport that can't be easily explained by rigid facts. Among those enigmatic successful runs is the career of former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Rashad Evans. Recently, Evans has come out and made it public that he doesn't feel that he will ever receive the kind of respect that he deserves until he retires, and that's probably true. While Rashad Evans has proven himself time and again against some of the best light heavyweights of his era, it's still far more difficult than it should be to imagine Evans' path to victory against most of his contemporaries.

Rashad Evans squares off against Tito Ortiz this Saturday night at UFC 133 for the second time in his career. Back at UFC 73 in the summer of 2007, Rashad Evans was taking a sizable step up in competition and was the underdog against the former champion Ortiz. Fast forward to the summer of 2011, and it's now Evans who is a huge favorite, despite the fact that his path to victory against Tito Ortiz is no more clear now than it was four years ago.

An objective look at Evans' skill set should reveal that he's incredibly talented, but historically has been unable to utilize those talents to their fullest potential. The man they call "Suga" is an explosive wrestler, but typically fails on his first takedown attempt. When the first attempt comes up short, he bulls his opponent into the fence and exhausts himself attempting takedowns that he eventually gets, but that are usually undone by his opponent wall walking and popping right back up. On the feet and on the ground, Evans has proven that he has the power to put out any light heavyweight in the division, but he doesn't possess the sort of reach, striking output, and top game necessary to make regular use of his power.

Considering how durable Tito Ortiz has proven to be over the years, are fans really expecting Rashad Evans to stop Ortiz in the manner in which he did Sean Salmon and Chuck Liddell? Anyone who watched the first meeting between the two - or really any of Evans' fights afterward - should realize that Evans taking down and holding down Ortiz probably isn’t the most likely outcome, either. Is Rashad Evans going to stuff the takedown and win a kickboxing match against Tito Ortiz? It certainly isn't impossible, and considering his recent training with K-1 standout Tyrone Spong, perhaps it's more possible now than ever, but it isn't something we've ever seen from him in the past.

As a matter of fact, whenever that's been the gameplan in the past, Evans has dropped rounds. While he wound up lamping Chuck Liddell in the second round, he pretty much handed Liddell the first. In the first two rounds of his fight with Forrest Griffin, Evans was soundly outworked by a much slower competitor. Of course against Lyoto Machida, Evans landed virtually nothing, made no real attempts at landing anything and was seriously hurt by Machida in almost every exchange.

If anything gives Tito Ortiz more than just a fighting chance against Evans this Saturday night, it's the knockout loss that Evans suffered against Machida back in 2009. Fighters who suffer brutal knockout losses like the one Evans suffered at UFC 98 typically don't recover well. Fighters like Chuck Liddell, Marcus Davis, Wanderlei Silva, Dan Hardy, and Michael Bisping never found themselves hurt too badly by strikes before they were brutally stopped in MMA bouts. From that point on each of those fighters were seriously hurt, knocked down, or knocked out in almost every bout after their brutal knockout loss.

Given the way that Tito Ortiz was able to dispose of Ryan Bader, one might even argue that Ortiz's path to victory is a bit more clear than that of Evans.


Feel free to follow me on Twitter @JasonAmadi and give apple butter a try.


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