Rashad Evans says he won't fight Anthony Johnson.

[The Great Cochrane]

Anthony Johnson needed just 44 seconds to show the world why he's just as much of a wrecking ball at 205 as he was at 170 when he bulldozed Rogerio Nogueira last Saturday at UFC on Fox and most certainly put a lot of top contenders on notice when he did so, and quite possibly could have easily plunged himself next in line against a top 5 contender in the process.

Ironically enough, one of the people who also sits on the upper echelon of the division is one of Rumble's training partners; Rashad Evans. Who currently is on the sidelines nursing an ACL tear which caused him to pull out of a scheduled bout with Daniel Cormier at UFC 170.

Immediately after he dispatched Nogueira all the critics drew questions of if Rashad Evans and Anthony Johnson would meet. Simply put; Rashad said "no".

We fight more than the UFC can pay us to. We fight every single day. We are each other's No. 1 training partner. Would I fight him professionally? No I wouldn't fight him. We feed off each other in a lot of different ways. No, I can't fight him.

This is not the first time that Rashad has been poised in the position of having to fight training partners, as his long remembered feud with then champion Jon Jones sparked the two to eventually meet at UFC 145 a couple years ago. And would like to learn from that experience in declining to fight Johnson.

I believe that with the relationship that Anthony and I have, that if that bridge needed to get crossed, we would find a different way to handle it than I did the first time.

The thing that Evans is most focused on at this time, is making his return back to the octagon 100% after he recovers from his injury. Something he hopes to do by early 2015.

The knee is coming along pretty well. I didn't want to put myself in a situation where I was coming back too soon. I've been taking my time with my therapy - taking some downtime to allow my mind to not push my body too far past the limits right now.

I want to return in February. That's just me giving myself enough time to make sure that I feel comfortable getting back in there, cause I know when I'm getting back in there, there is nothing but tough guys in my way.

I'm definitely going to have a tough fight when I come back so I want to be ready for that.

After losing to Jones at UFC 145, Evans took a long absence from the octagon that lasted until February 2013 and lost to the man that his training partner Johnson defeated on Saturday Night - Rogerio Nogueira. After which he defeated Dan Henderson at UFC 161, then dominated Chael Sonnen at UFC 167.

Author: Alex Cochrane
Cited source: Karim Zidan

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I've stated this many times and I can't state it enough - I believe that Rashad should drop down to 185. He's pretty much faced the who's who of 205 to the point that he can create much more interesting match ups at 185. Fights like; Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Gegard Mousasi would certainly be an interesting fight, or even Mark Munoz. I would much rather see him as a middleweight, because I believe Johnson will more than likely be the one to take the title from Jones and that will lead to a conflict at the Blackzilian training camp.

 

[Swinny]

Yeah I'm surprised Rashad hasn't dropped down, it's definitely the best move for him. He's fought everybody at 205, isn't likely to get another title shot any time soon, but if he drops down he's got some interesting fights and could potential find an easier path to a title shot.