Rashad Evans Teases Retirement Following UFC 225 Loss
After a first round knockout to Anthony Smith in the preliminary fights for UFC 225, Rashad Evans approached UFC President Dana White, and indicated it may be over for him as a fighter.
White recounted the story to reporters at the UFC 225 post fight presser.
“When he lost, I had him come back to my room,” White said at Saturday’s UFC 225 post-fight press conference. “We hung out and talked, and yeah, it’s sad. Rashad was on season two of The Ultimate Fighter, so he was around through the whole building of this company. We all get old, man, and this is a young man’s sport. But if you look at what he [did], he won The Ultimate Fighter, he became a world champion, he [built] this team where he was like the guy and built all these young up-and-coming fighters. He’s been in big, huge fights.
“He’s been on the ride with us the whole way and he got to close it out in his hometown of Chicago, so not a bad run.”
Evans would go on a legendary 12-1-1 run beginning in 2005 and ending in 2012. Evans would square off with Michael Bisping, Tito Ortiz, Rampage Jackson, Phil Davis, Chuck Liddell, and take the UFC light heavyweight title from Forrest Griffin at UFC 92. Since then, Evans has slowly descended down the card, going 2-7 in his most recent nine fights, including a five fight losing streak.
White claims that Evans told him that he was retiring, yet Evans would not confirm or deny on Sunday in an instagram post.
“Yeah, he did. Yeah,” White said. “Again, I don’t want to stomp on his — if he was going to retire or whatever, I don’t want to steal the thunder from him.
“And obviously after a fight like that, he’s super emotional too. So yeah, I hope he does.”