Does Rashad Evans beat Shogun at 128?

XThe GreatestX

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if he doesn't get injured?

They didn't fight later on either which was sorta odd. I'd say Rashad was a bit fresher at that point as i think Shogun had the knee surgeries and was out a while before that Jones fight

But what say you?
 
Definitely could have. Shogun was coming off another knee surgery and hes historically performed bad after having knee surgery so that would play a huge role Rashads chances of success. Rashad came from a good camp who gameplanned and he had fast hands and good power with comprehensive wrestling. Wouldn't be a walk in the park for Shogun.
 
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I think so, because Shogun was coming off a 3rd knee injury after beating Machina

3 Knee injuries during a time were surgeons weren't as good at reconstructing knees

Yeah prob a fight that could have gone either way. Would've been either Rashad taking a ton of damage or Shogun getting grappled and GNP. No one usually remembers the situation around the Shogun vs Jones fight. Plus Jones is super juicy as we now know.
 
I would favor Shogun at the time in a 5 round fight. Rashad's chin wasn't that good and while he had great takedowns his top control was really lacking so Shogun would have had a lot of chances to KO/TKO Rashad in 25 minutes. Shogun still had pretty good sweeps at the time too.
 
Shogun better striker, Rashad better Wrestler. Shogun better Bjj.

50/50 both were top 5 then.
 
I would favor Shogun at the time in a 5 round fight. Rashad's chin wasn't that good and while he had great takedowns his top control was really lacking so Shogun would have had a lot of chances to KO/TKO Rashad in 25 minutes. Shogun still had pretty good sweeps at the time too.
Shoguns biggest weakness was wrestling. Rashad was a very smart fighter. He’d wrestle to a Dec is the most realistic scenario.
Rashad was smart but one thing that was weird is he seemed to lose focus around that time in some of his fights and get hurt.

Thiago Silva fight he controlled then just randomly gets hurt in round 3
Rampage fight he controlled then just randomly gets hurt in round 3
I think there was another can't remember from around that time

And when i say random obviously both guys were power punchers but he was controlling both fights ,then in the 3rd he would be dancing around on his feet then got kinda bullrushed in both situations and didn't react well and got caught. Almost finished both times
 
Love Shogun but you could clearly see the physical difference before and after that third surgery. For a frame of reference, watch the 1st Machida fight and see how he glided across the cage from one end to the other. Then immediately pop in Shogun vs Hendo 1. While one of the greatest classics of all-time, his movement in that fight clearly demonstrated the difference.
 
128 is a pretty drastic weight cut for both guys

Got me thinkin does Henderson beat Jones at 151?

Hendo did bomb on Fedor after all.

220px-UFC_151_poster.jpg
 
Impossible to really know as everybody ignores that Jones opened the fight with a flush flying knee that according to Shogun and his brother badly affected him for the rest of the fight and was his real issue:

]

People try and blame the ass whooping on impossible questions like Shogun's prime or knees instead of this moment which definitely happened, and is the moment he and his team blames his performance on. Worth pointing out too to those people, but he looked great against Forrest and then had the FOTY against Henderson that same year too which further supports how dumb it is to talk about prime or injury issues when Jones, prodigy or not, is the outlier and has this huge moment Shogun and his team point too as having caused it.

Shogun could've looked amazing that night, against Jones or otherwise, without this. We have no idea.

Stylistically I'd have favoured Rashad though.
 
Rashad was smart but one thing that was weird is he seemed to lose focus around that time in some of his fights and get hurt.

Thiago Silva fight he controlled then just randomly gets hurt in round 3
Rampage fight he controlled then just randomly gets hurt in round 3
I think there was another can't remember from around that time

And when i say random obviously both guys were power punchers but he was controlling both fights ,then in the 3rd he would be dancing around on his feet then got kinda bullrushed in both situations and didn't react well and got caught. Almost finished both times

I think the Thiago fight shows the issues with Rashad's top control, he got a shit load of takedowns but other than the first round he didn't have much control time, he also got out struck every round. I had Thiago winning that fight but I think the judges back then scored control much higher than they do now. I think it would be kind of similar to that but with Shogun more likely to get on top at some point for some GnP.
 
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