UFC
Phil Davis on UFC on Fox 2 loss to Rashad Evans - "I'm glad he poked holes in my game"
Mar 26, 2012 - 8:00:12 PM Phil Davis on UFC on Fox 2 loss to Rashad Evans - "I'm glad he poked holes in my game"

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Phil Davis took a massive leap up in competition when he returned to action this January, taking on former Champion and number one contender Rashad Evans at UFC on Fox 2 in Chicago. Through five rounds in that night's main event, Davis was kept completely off his game and fairly ineffective throughout, leading to a unanimous decision loss.

That defeat was the first of his career, snapping a nine-fight winning streak that began in his MMA debut back in 2008. Still, while the loss sets him back in the line at 205 lbs. in the UFC, Davis is looking on the defeat as a a positive moment in his development as a fighter.

"I'm glad he poked holes in my game," Davis said in an interview with MMAFighting.com. "Because now I can fix some of those holes and know where the No. 2 guy in the world is going to beat me. Now I have a benchmark. Losing is not the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world is not getting better. I'm glad I got that fight. I'm glad I got it twice, and I'm just real excited about where I'm at in my career."

Davis is taking a bit of time off from the cage, but is staying active with the UFC as he helps teammate Dominick Cruz in coaching on The Ultimate Fighter. He continues to try to improve upon things he feels Evans exposed in January, and hopes to come back much stronger when he does return to the cage.

"I'm taking it day by day," he said. "The last thing I want is to give an incomplete performance. My next performance I want everyone to go, 'Wow, yes, this guy is for real.'"

Penick's Analysis: The fight with Evans was simply too soon for Davis. The fact that he had racked up nine straight wins, and had defeated Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, had far too many putting him in the same category as Jon Jones as a immensely fast rising prospect. He's still a very good fighter, but his MMA skills haven't progressed at the same exponential rate that we saw out of Jones. Being booked in the fight with Evans was a losing proposition from the get go, and that was made all the more apparent with how the fight played out in January. Now that he's suffered this first loss, he should be brought back up the ladder at a more reasonable pace, as he's wholly capable of developing into a title-worthy talent. He's just not there quite yet.

[Phil Davis art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]