In his interview with the media, Phil “Mr. Wonderful” Davis discussed several topics: his upcoming fight with Rashad Evans, Jon “Bones” Jones, and his favorite fighters.

On how he’s going to fight Rashad:

“I’m just gonna go and do what I do: go in there, strike with him, wrestle with him, take him down, ground and pound, look to submit…MMA him, if you will.”

When I asked him about whether or not he was concerned with Rashad’s wrestling ability, given that they were both collegiate wrestlers, Davis quickly asked, “Can you tell me his wrestling pedigree?” to which I had no reply.

Davis brought up a great point. While Rashad is often touted to be a successful collegiate wrestler, upon further research, his wrestling “pedigree,” as Davis put it, pales in comparison to Davis’ NCAA career. While Davis had an overall record of 116-17 and was an NCAA Division I All-American four times (winning a NCAA title in 2008), Evans was only 48-34 at Michigan State.

He would later go on to add, “I like him. I have a lot of respect for him.”

I also asked him about his thoughts on the development of Jon “Bones” Jones has made since their time together with LionHeart in 2008-2009:

“At the time…I was so bad I didn’t know how good he was! He still came a long way from where I saw him to where he is now…he’s come a long way.”

How would he prepare for a fight against Jon Jones? “I’d approach the fight as I approach every fight: baseball bats and billy clubs, man.”

When asked about his favorite fighters, BJ Penn easily made the list.

“I mean, I like different things about everybody, you know? I like BJ’s kinda like…crazy style…BJ’s like ‘brawl,’ he don’t care. I like that. He’ll fight anybody. I-I will not, I won’t fight ‘anybody.’ But BJ would, and I like that about him. BJ would fight [Alistair] Overeem. I won’t…but BJ would. I like that about him.”

By: Kevin Leong