Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Rashad Evans made his middleweight division debut at UFC 209.
The former champion suffered a decision loss to Daniel Kelly at the event and he has no plans to retire after the loss.
“I’ve got to get this off me,” Evans said on The Luke Thomas Show. “I’ve got to get this loss off me. I know I’m better than this. I know I’m a better competitor than this, and I want to go out there and fight as much as I can. That’s just the truth of the matter. I’m 37 years old and I don’t know how long my body is going to hold out to do what I love to do. I want to compete as much as I can until I can’t compete anymore. And when I can’t compete anymore, I can’t compete anymore. But at the end of the day, I still feel like I can compete, and that’s what I want to do. I want to compete.”
Evan’s last bout at light heavyweight was a knockout loss to Glover Teixeira at UFC On Fox 19. With his middleweight division debut loss behind him, the former champion believes it's best not to over think everything.
“You don’t want to sit and overthink every little thing because you can’t figure it all out,” Evans said. “The best thing to do is get back out there and to fight again and to find that competitive rhythm and find that flow. Once you find that flow it’s like, ‘Ah, yeah, this is my flow. This is my routine. This is what I need to do because this is the kind of fighter I am, this is the kind of competitor I am.’ When you find a competitive mojo, then it’s easy to rattle off a couple wins and fulfill the potential. When you don’t have that competitive rhythm it’s hard.”
Rashad won the UFC Light Heavyweight Title with a TKO win over Forrest Griffin at UFC 92.
