UFC 73 seems to be a lifetime ago, career wise, for Tito Ortiz and Rashad Evans. Back then Ortiz was coming off a second TKO loss to Chuck Liddell that ended a five fight winning streak and Evans was on the 10 fight winning streak he began his career with. Four years and many more UFC events later, they meet again. But this time the roles have been reversed somewhat.
Rashad needs the win to maintain momentum that stalled with his declining to fight until Rua was healed. Tito needs to show he’s for real, that the win over Ryan Bader wasn’t a fluke and that he’s still a top fighter in the world. In 2007 Tito was still a top fighter in the world and Rashad had legions of doubters about his ability; now Rashad is a consensus Top light heavyweight and Tito needs a win against a top guy to show he’s still a top fighter.
How will the fight go down? Neither has changed their styles all that much since then. Both are still wrestlers looking for the takedown and top position to grind out a decision victory. In many ways this appears to be a similar fight to their last one; both will use their kickboxing to set up takedowns and then ground and pound their way to a victory.
Rashad may have improved facets of his game but he’s still the same fighter he was back then. Ortiz is still pretty much the same fighter as well. The only difference between that fight and this one is that Rashad has the big fight experience he didn’t then. He’s shown that he can hang with the best and now he’s a top three fighter in the division as opposed to being a reality TV star who fights like he was then.
Tito’s game plan will come in fairly similar to the one he just recently employed, most likely. The one thing Rashad has shown since then is that he can finish top level fighters. Tito has to be leery of Rashad’s power, especially in the standing game. Look for Tito to maintain his distance and use his boxing more for damage than as a setup for his takedowns. The one thing Tito did really well in the Bader fight, which he hadn’t done in years, was use his footwork to set up angles. It’s how he caught Bader and rocked him; look for him to do something similar with Rashad. Rashad has much better footwork than Bader does, though, so it’ll be a tougher task keeping his distance and making Rashad have to work hard and close the gap.
He won’t stand and trade with Evans in a sloppy kick-boxing match but he’ll make Rashad work to get close enough to go for the former Jackson camp member’s preferred fighting method: the grinding takedown game.
Rashad may have brought in a different group of fighters to train after leaving Greg Jackson’s camp but we can’t read too much into this. His game plan will be the same as it has been in the past:
Step 1. Close the distance.
Step 2. Get the takedown.
Step 3. Grind it out as long as possible.
Step 4. Repeat Step 1.
Rashad has KO power in his hands but he hasn’t really unleashed it since he lost the standup battle with Lyoto Machida. Against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Thiago Silva he’s shown a tendency to play it safe, to go for the takedown and grid it out, and both of those fights he won the first two rounds convincingly and nearly lost the fight in the third. Both fighters caught Evans and had chances to finish him they couldn’t pull it off. Evans is very good on defense, even when he’s rocked, and that’s the thing we can take away from his loss to Machida. He knows when he’s hurt and how to get out of it.
There are two X-factors here that could decide the fight.
The first will be Tito’s submission abilities, particularly from the bottom. He only has two submission wins in his career but one was recent; Rashad was almost submitted the first time they fought with Tito’s arm-in guillotine. Tito caught a guy who’s got a bigger and thicker neck than Evans with it recently, as well, so he has to stay away from that. Tito had a deep triangle in against Machida that nearly ended that fight, as well, and Machida’s submission defense is better than Rashad’s. While it’s not his bread and butter, it’s a weapon in his arsenal and could be the difference for Ortiz.
While we can’t put a ton of stock into Tito’s BJJ abilities as a means of ending the fight they are going to come into play at some point. Rashad’s game is to be on top and in control; what Tito does from the bottom could be a deciding factor. Rashad will probably be more cautious at first if and when he gets Tito to the ground; he’s going to have to respect Tito’s bottom game by either smothering him or keeping him in the mount & side control. He’ll probably let him up a couple times as well; if he can’t get the position he wants and is getting takedowns he’ll keep doing so until he has the position he wants.
The other factor is what happens if Rashad gets caught and rocked. Tito has enough experience and his bread & butter for years has been the ability to swarm guys after catching them with something. If Tito catches Rashad with something, can he capitalize on it and end it? One hardly thinks so, especially if Rampage couldn’t finish Rashad after catching him with a beautiful punch, but history shows us that sometimes all it takes is one punch to set up a finish.
This will most likely be a three round decision. Look for Rashad Evans to win 29-28 on all three cards.
