Rashad Evans had everything going against him going into his fight with Tito Ortiz. Fifteen months removed from his last fight, and three weeks before UFC 133, he went from a tough fight against Phil Davis to one with a seemingly resurgent Tito Ortiz. After Ortiz finished off a tough fighter in Ryan Bader in devastating fashion, it would be easy to be intimidated by a cagey veteran on the comeback trail. Ortiz may have drawn with the Michigan State wrestler four years ago, and gone on to heights only matched by Ortiz’s extended loss streak, but he came into the fight with almost nothing to gain and nearly everything to lose. And what did he do? He dominated Ortiz for nearly 10 minutes before stopping him in devastating fashion.
If there was any doubt that Evans was the #2 light heavyweight in the world, he just eliminated it.
Fighting off Tito’s lone submission attempt, as well as some improved footwork and cage control, Evans emphatically made the case that Jon Jones has a war on his hands if he can get past Quinton Jackson. And it does something the UFC hasn’t been able to do in a long time: have a sellable fight in the division already lined up no matter who wins. Dana White has to be licking his chops right now because he has two big fights in the division with enough drama to jump-start a division that badly needs it.
Jones-Jackson is now a much more intriguing affair because now the winner has something palpable to bring to a fight with Rashad Evans. If Jones can walk away with his belt, something no fighter in the division has done since Lyoto Machida won a controversial decision over Shogun Rua, he has his former training partner and friend to look forward to. If Jackson can defeat the young champion then a rematch of one of the biggest grudge matches in UFC history becomes all that more compelling.
Either way Dana White’s job at promoting the next light heavyweight championship fight becomes easier. After a year stretch where light heavyweight was a division didn’t have much going on, being overshadowed by heavyweight and middleweight fighters regularly due to injuries from its top fighters, the light heavyweight division now has as much intrigue as any division in the UFC right now. And it comes from one thing: Rashad stopping somebody for the first time in a long time.
It was the only result that makes Evans against the winner of Jones-Jackson an exciting fight. Rashad had plenty to lose with a lackluster victory, and even more with a defeat, and he came through in surprising fashion. The only way he could come out of the fight with a resurgent Ortiz is with a dominating victory and a finish and that’s exactly what happened. And now he’s in the driver’s seat. No matter who has the title this winter when Rashad most likely challenges for a title he lost in devastating fashion, everyone’s a winner.
