Greg Jackson, on “Beatdown,” discussing what, if anything, can be taken from the training sessions between Jon Jones and Rashad Evans:
“I would say that it’s very hard to rely on that. It depends on where you are in your career. If you’re at the end of somebody’s career, where they’re not constantly improving and learning new moves, then certainly you are who you are. … But in the beginning of your career, I don’t think that’s very true, although you do have tendencies. You can definitely grow and change. … I think for both of these guys, that’s the case for sure. I think the fighters they were a couple of years ago -- I mean, there’s still things that are very similar about them obviously, but they’ve also both grown. … Rashad has definitely got a lot faster. He’s very, very good. It’s going to be a real trick. I think this is Jon’s toughest fight, not because they sparred together or anything like that, that a lot of people look for. But I think it’s just because Rashad’s a great, great fighter. We trained him for years and years and years. He’s an amazing fighter. That in itself is going to make this the toughest fight of Jon’s career for sure.”