Former UFC light heavyweight champion, Rashad Evans has spoken for the first time about the knee injury that’s forced him to withdraw from his proposed fight with Maurcio “Shogun” Rua next month at UFC 128 in Newark, New Jersey.Speaking via the Telegraph.co.uk, Evans said:
“I’m very disappointed. I was at practise on Wednesday, we were drilling wrestling technique, and one partner was going at 100pc and the other partner at 30pc and the drill was seeing how many takedowns you could get in a minute. I was being a partner and someone ran into the side of my leg – two people tried to do a takedown – they took my knee and I just fell down right away. I knew right away I was done. The injury is to the medial lateral ligament. It’s a pretty bad strain, so it will be bad for 4 to six weeks, so if the fight had been another month away, then I’d at least be able to train before the fight.”
“But I’ve got to rest it, even before I could do any training on it. I’m down, I’m a bit upset, I’ve waited for the opportunity to fight for the belt and it just didn’t work out like that, but on the flipside I’m happy that Jon got a chance to do it because he’s an exciting fighter, he’s talented, he’s my training partner and I’m happy for him. But I’m just a bit down inside because I’m losing an opportunity.”
“I told Dana White on Thursday that I had done a number on it pretty badly. He flew me out [to Vegas] and got it checked out by the doctor here and it was confirmed, so we went through the scenarios of who could step in. I’ll be back.”
Evans now finds himself out in the cold, not only forced to rehab his injured knee but will have to watch his training partner, Jon Jones, a man he vowed he’d never meet inside the octagon, compete for the title next month against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.
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