Former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Rashad Evans has been dealing with the injury bug for a while and now he may have found a lucrative, fun way out of the world of MMA. Unexpectedly, he is apparently interested in a professional wrestling career with the WWE. Rashad is a solid box office draw. Take his fight with Quentin ‘Rampage’ Jackson for instance. That fight garnered over 1 million PPV buys.
Evans oozes personality and he knows how to sell a fight. WWE officials have to be taking note of this. Rashad is a beast in the cage and has been in some amazing scraps. His fight with Jon Jones was as hyped as they come and he lasted 5 rounds with a fighter who is being called the greatest light heavyweight fighter of all time. Evans is also a Gracie BJJ black belt under Rolles Gracie and his NCAA elite level wrestling pedigree makes him a perfect fit for sports entertainment.
Rashad is coming off knee surgery and at 34 years old, and that’s old by MMA standards, he has toyed with retiring from MMA altogether. The one thing he needs to keep in mind is that the WWE may be scripted, but it is brutal and wears the body down quickly. Concussions, neck and spine injuries, and muscle tears are some of the most common with the WWE’s more active wrestlers. Bad knees won’t help his training just to make it on to WWE TV, let alone NXT on the WWE Network.
With the financial woes the WWE has right now due to the lack of WWE Network buys money is tight. Let’s be honest – Evans is not going to be an attraction like Brock Lesnar is. Granted, Lesnar was a draw for the WWE before he was in the UFC, but Evans is just not a genetic monster like Brock who draws on his look alone. His size may keep him in the middle of the pack and that means less bonuses and pay in general than he would get in the UFC for a mid-card fight. That may stop the former champion from jumping ship. The WWE would gain more legitimacy in terms of how realistic their athletes are, basically like mainstream street cred, but Evans would lose out on the financial side unless the WWE wanted him badly enough to pay him what he could get in the UFC.
We could see him being a Paul Heyman guy right off the bat though…..
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