Whenever Rashad Evans decides to hang up his gloves, he'll be considered one of the all-time greatest fighters the sport has ever known. The former UFC light heavyweight champion began his professional career in 2004 and did not lose a bout until 2009, featuring brutal KO wins against legends like Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin.
In recent years, however, the narrative has changed. Evans has lost six of his past eight matchups heading into Saturday's UFC 225 fight with Anthony Smith, and at 38 years old, the end of his career could be near.
In our latest installment of "My life as a fighter," Evans looks back on his time in the sport. He discusses his best and worst moments in the cage, how his mindset has changed over the years and plans for the future.
I was a rowdy boy growing up. We would fight all the time. I grew up fighting my brother, who was two years older than me, so there was no escaping it. For the longest time I was his punching bag. I grew up in a tough neighborhood and fighting was just all there was.
Wrestling was a good way for me to let out some energy. I wanted to play football, and my football coach told me if I wanted to be a football player, I should wrestle. That's why I started to wrestle.
Community college was really a place where I started to embody this 'mono-e-mono' competition and really started making a mental game out of competing. Growing up, I was just so much better than everybody else I didn't have to tap into that mental side of things. Now I was going against guys who were just as good as me. I had to really start to bring the mental game and it's when I began to love competing.
I went to Michigan State because a coach I was being recruited by told me if I go to Michigan State, I wouldn't start. I didn't like the boundaries he put on me. He was probably trying to look out for my best interests, but at the time I took it kind of personal. Not only did I start, but I made captain.
MMA was love at fight sight. I felt like I was born to do it. After I started, within three months I had my first professional fight. It was just something that was in me from so long ago. It was very natural for me.
Fighting is just who I am. It's so part of my nature that it's my walk in life. When people think of fighting, they think of such a distorted view of what it really is. They just see the brutality of it. They only see the blood. But fighting to me is a very spiritual and psychological thing. When it comes down to it, physicality is the last part of it. Most of it is the spiritual and psychological journey. To me, fighting is life.
It's really hard to just pick one fight that stands out more than the others. Even the ones where I lost, they have a place in my life and career. I value them as much as the ones that I won.
When I kicked Sean Salmon in the head, that feeling was just crazy. It was like 'whoa.' He was out but then he was really, really out. I hit him hard. I felt a little bad about it. It was at a time where I had a lot to prove in the UFC. It was an amazing feeling. It was like I finally arrived.
When I beat Forrest Griffin for the title, I felt really, really happy, but at the same time I felt kind of empty too. I remember after I won the belt, I was in a state of like, 'Is that it? That's it I guess.' I just climbed to the top of the hill and it was just a hill.
If I won the title now, after all of this, I would get on the floor and cry like a baby. I've been through so much. If I get there now, it would be a different experience because of what I embodied to have to get to that point.
Going into my fight with Lyoto Machida, I was champion and felt like I was unbeatable. I was thinking I would just steamroll right through him. He caught me with a left hand and it just dazed the hell out of me. I went down to a knee and he was covering me, trying to finish the fight. In my mind, I was still talking trash to him, saying 'this is nothing, this is nothing.' Then he hit me with a punch and I go down.
I felt like I lost everything. I no longer was worthy. It was a hard one for me at the time, but believe it or not I felt a huge weight just lift off my shoulders. I felt like I could finally exhale. That loss was probably the easiest out of all of them.
The hardest loss was when I lost to Dan Kelly. Nothing against Dan Kelly, but I feel like I'm a way, way better fighter than him. But I lost the fight. To have a fight where you lose, where you feel and know that you're just better than a person, it's hard. It feels like you've lost at such a deep, deep level. It really shifted the whole idea of 'Sugar' Rashad Evans. Who is 'Sugar' Rashad Evans? Who am I?
It really started the whole process of waking up. Waking up to a deeper meaning to what life is and could be. What are the real motivations behind my actions, good and bad? You're learning about truth in life. The truth can't be told, it has to be realized. That realization is something that each of us, if you reach a point, you're going to be looking to find it. No one can tell you how to do it. You have to do it yourself.
When I turned 35 I blew my knee out and had two ACL surgeries. That was kind of the beginning of the downward spiral of 'Sugar' Rashad Evans when it comes to competing in the UFC. It was bad timing in my life, but at the same time maybe it was exactly what I needed because maybe I would have been world champion and truly lost my self and gone crazy and overdosed or done something else.
I haven't really thought too much about how I'd like to be remembered. If I'm going to be honest, it's based on the person that I am, and just my fighting spirit, more than anything. I want them to remember that I would be the smallest guy in the cage. Most fans who meet me see how small I am in real life and just can't believe it. But I fought giants. I'll fight giants in a minute. Dan Henderson gave me the best advice. I asked him, 'How do you fight guys so much bigger than you?' He said, 'Because I'm big on the inside.' And that's me. I'm big on the inside.
My love for fighting is pure like it was in the beginning. My love for fighting is not to beat up anybody, to prove how tough I am, to win a belt. All of these external things, when it comes down to it, means absolutely nothing.
After fighting I would love to be a mentor to a bunch of kids. I want to be able to help out some of these kids in the inner city like Chicago where they are joining gangs. These kids who are a product of a failed school system who is not about building these kids to be leaders or be who they could be. I want to save them through fighting. I want to teach them the beauty of fighting. The beauty of this sport. And this beautiful violence that is a mental chess game. It's a chess game with a physical component.
This sport has made me into a man. It's made me into one hell of an accountable person. There's nothing like the feeling when you have to make that walk to the Octagon, and you know, when that door closes, it's only you. And that feeling alone will make a man out of you.
I'm now able to look in the mirror and be able to recognize the person that's standing in front of me. Something very strange happened on this whole ride. You start to get pulled away from yourself. You don't really notice it at first, but over time it happens. It happens with a compliment. It happens by feeding the press. It happens by just trying to be who people think you are. You are trying to be who people think that you are, and you lose who you really are. It's just the rhythm of life.
Fighting is an emotional roller coaster. A lot of fighters go through it and can't recover from it. Look at Ronda Rousey. She was on the upswing, life was good. But when she hit that downward swing and the pendulum came down, that's a lot to handle. She couldn't handle it and said she didn't want to be part of the sport anymore.
Since I've been fighting my mind and life has changed. I no longer see the world the same way. I no longer see competing the same way. Things are different to me internally. What does that mean? Does it mean I can't compete like I used to? I don't know. But I'm going to go see.