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It takes an incredible amount of confidence and guts to be a professional fighter, let alone a fighter who is able to compete at the world championship level. What fans rarely hear about are the moments where that confidence falters and self-doubt creeps in.
On “Morning Kombat’s Storytime With Suga,” Rashad Evans told host Brian Campbell about the first time in his storied MMA career where he’d experienced that doubt. After picking up a split decision win over Michael Bisping, Evans, then 10-0-1 had been scheduled to fight UFC legend Chuck Liddell at UFC 88 in September 2008.
“Going into the fight and fight week, I felt pretty good, I felt like I had a good fight camp,” Evans said. “But there was something that happened the night before the fight and I got nerves that I couldn’t shake to the point where I called Randy Couture and I was like, ‘Yo, Randy, I’m nervous, man. I’m nervous, man. I’m nervous. I’m nervous.’ He told me to come down and I came down to his room. As soon as he opened the door, I was like, ‘Oh my god, Randy.’ I just fell on his bed and was like, ‘I’m so nervous. I’ve never felt like this before.’ Randy was a mentor of mine at the time, just always gave me sage advice like only Randy Couture can. To this day, he’s one of the best. If you’ve ever got a problem, Randy might have the answer. He’s that sage with his advice.
“He’s just looking at me wallowing and giving into my fear. There’s nobody cooler than a cucumber than Randy Couture when it comes to a fight. I’ve watched this guy host a party with 30 people before he went and fought and he was cool, like it was not a problem at all. He’s got ice running through his veins at all times.”
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At that point, Couture explained to Evans the importance of accepting the possibility of defeat. Evans had been nearly perfect as a professional, with the only blemish on his record a draw to Tito Ortiz two fights prior to the Liddell fight.
“Randy, he just looked at me and he says, ‘You know the problem is the fact that you haven’t made friends with the worst outcome. You’ve got to make friends with the worst outcome. You’ve got to understand that you could go into this fight and it could be the most embarrassing fight of your life. You could go in there and get knocked out in seconds. There can be highlights of you all over. But the sun will still rise, there will be another day, you will live to fight again and your family will still love you.'”
Evans would score a brutal knockout of Liddell, setting him up to face light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin in his next trip to the Octagon, a fight Evans would win to become world champion.