Rashad Evans: I'm being disrespected but I will get what's mine
Only one week to go before I fight Jon Jones and win back the UFC light heavyweight title at UFC 145 in Atlanta. I go there on Monday night, after going to a Miami Marlins game here in Florida and a stop in New York for some media work on Monday.
The time for talking is almost over and finally the fight is almost here. I can't wait to get to Atlanta, which has been great to me. The last time I fought there in September 2008 I was also an underdog against Chuck Liddell, but I knocked him out and earned a title shot. This time in Atlanta, I'm knocking Jon Jones out as the underdog and getting the belt in Atlanta.
Jon has already shown me that he's going to lose. He's a student of the game, a fast learner and he will be a better fighter than the one I last sparred with a year ago. But I am on a different level now, and he doesn't seem to realize that. He said in an interview I can win with a big right hand – like I caught Chuck with – or by wrestling him for five rounds and that's all he has to worry about.
He said a few things that didn't make too much sense, man. He said I disrespected the program where we both used to train at – the Greg Jackson gym. The reality is: I helped make Greg Jackson. I helped make that program, I helped make that gym. I helped put that gym on the map, and that's why I feel so disrespected in all of this. Jon Jones has no history, no roots in making that gym, no roots in making that history or legacy, so I won't have him talking about what I can and cannot say about my own history.
Guys like me and Georges St-Pierre helped make that whole scene there. But the gym brought in Jon Jones, who was going to fight me, and they brought in Carlos Condit, who will be fighting GSP. Loyalty? Where is your loyalty, if not to the people who made you and put you on the map?
It's like I've been saying: Who would Greg Jackson be if it wasn't for the original fighters who really put the Greg Jackson camp on the map? Nobody would be hearing about him or that gym in Albuquerque. He would just be a guy who trains martial artists instead of having this rep he has now.
I know what Jon's doing in the gym and I know what Greg Jackson is telling him right now. I know what they do there. I know what time they get to the gym, where they warm-up, where they run, where they eat, I know everything. The gym wasn't changing during the years I was there and it hasn't changed since I left.
I want to prove to everyone that I made other people's success in this sport more than they made mine.
Jon loves the sport, he loves training and he sure loves being the champion and having people talk about him. He will have prepared very hard for this. But he's not prepared for me, for what I am right now.
The sooner Jones realizes that he's not this "chosen one," the sooner he will be able to accept what happens to him next Saturday. Jon is not the person he says he is; he's not the champion he thinks he is; and he's not ready – in more ways than one – for the fall he's going to suffer after I beat him at UFC 145. This will be a real bad time for Jon and I hope he's humbled a little.
I'm getting busy but still reading tweets, hit me up @SugaRashadEvans.
UFC 145: JONES vs EVANS will be live on Pay-Per-View, including here on Yahoo! Sports, next Saturday night.
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