January 3, 2010, at 4:20 pm
I’ve been really critical of Rashad Evans. I think that he is remarkably talented, but has never really put his game together. At times, he’s shown the dominant wrestling that made him a star at Michigan State. At times, he’s shown the kind of striking that knocked Chuck Liddell into the fourth dimension. However, when were we going to see a complete Rashad Evans?
The answer: 01/02/10.
What we saw last night was the classic Greg Jackson gameplan. Strike to set up the takedown, and control the fight. Throughout the first two rounds, Evans dominated Thiago Silva by using crisp combination and following them up with strong takedowns. This gameplan reminded me of another Greg Jackson disciple, welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre. He just didn’t execute that plan nearly as well.
With a little review of the FightMetric stats, Evans was 8-for-16 on takedown attempts. That’s not exactly a St. Pierre-like number. Further review shows how dominant he was in round one. He was 4-for-4 on his takedown attempts. In round two, he was 3-for-7, and in the final frame, he was just 1-for-5, but he was scrambling for a takedown after being tagged by Silva. What does this all mean? It could mean that he gassed, but that doesn’t really sound like Rashad. More than anything, I think he got less aggressive as the fight went on and that wound up hurting his overall performance.
The other thing that Evans still needs to improve is his ability to keep his opponent neutralized once they are down. Many of Evans attempts at passing guard were neutralized by Silva’s black belt level BJJ. One could make an argument that what makes St. Pierre so good is not just the dominant takedowns, but his remarkable ability to keep his opponent from sweeping him. Let’s just put it this way: St. Pierre hasn’t had his guard passed since fighting Jason “Mayhem” Miller in 2005. Being on top more means more opportunity for offense.
If you look at the striking data on the report, it would suggest that Silva won the stand-up game with some authority, which I think he did. However, there was one area where you can definitely say that Evans won the battle, and that was in the clinch. Once Rashad was able to close the distance, he hit a very high number of his strikes, and those strikes set up the take downs.
Don’t get me wrong, Evans didn’t fight the perfect fight. However, he finally was able to execute a gameplan that display both his phenomenal wrestling as well as decent power striking. While he attempts to find the perfect balance, it’s good to see that we aren’t going to see the Machida game plan where he looks like a training dummy. This gameplan is the best bet for Evans to become a dominant champ, which I think he can.
Just like his buddy GSP.
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