Rashad Evans Feels Eagle FC Is 'The Right Time and Opportunity’ for his Return

On Jan. 28, former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans is coming out of retirement. Evans (19-8-1, 0-0 Eagle FC) is scheduled to face Gabriel Checco in the co-headliner of Eagle FC 44 nearly four years after making his last walkout. The winner of “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 2 and UFC Hall of Famer will attempt to snap a five-bout skid and score his first victory since November 2013, when he stopped Chael Sonnen with punches in the first round at UFC 167. Now, it seems that the perfect moment has come to compete again.

“I’ve been training for a while,” Evans told Sherdog. “I’ve been thinking about coming back for a while, too, and just waiting for the right opportunity. With Eagle FC, it just seemed like the right time, the right opportunity. I thought it over for a while, and I wanted to really make sure that it was something that I wanted to do before I truly invested what it takes to go through a fight, you know? It’s a process, it’s not just going out there and just putting on the gloves. You got to bring yourself there, mentally as well as physically there, so you can compete at a higher level.”

When asked about his future, Evans didn’t commit to anything more than the upcoming battle. He wants to see how that one goes before making any plans.

“I don’t know, I’m gonna see how this one goes,” Evans said. “I’m gonna see how this one goes, you know what I’m saying? I’m just gonna focus on this fight to see what happens after this one fight. It’s all a feeling at the end of the day. I don’t want to go beyond the feeling that I have. This is a very natural thing for me to want to do, and I’m feeling like I’m in a good place about wanting to do it. It’s something that’s coming from inside, it’s something that just feels like it’s just a natural progression of where I’m going in my life, and I don’t know how I’m going to feel after this fight, so who knows? Maybe I want to do another one, maybe I won’t. Who knows?”

Still, there might be something enticing in Evans’ eyes, a clash with boxing rising star and YouTube sensation Logan Paul. During the interview, he talked about a hypothetical fight with Paul, the return of the Blackzilians, and more.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:50) Making his return nearly four years after announcing his retirement
(01:36) Getting back in a training camp
(03:50) Where he did his training camp
(04:34) The Blackzilians are back together
(04:54) Mentoring Greg Hardy
(05:48) A vivid description of Hardy’s finger injury
(06:55) The 165-pound category and considerations on weight
(09:10) Switching to boxing
(10:16) Whether he would like to face Jake Paul
(11:03) Whether his MMA return involves more than one fight
(12:03) Breaking down Tyrone Spong vs. Sergei Kharitonov
(13:30) Outro

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and he now covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.