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December 12, 2009. Rashad Evans was in Colorado, just another fan checking out the fights as UFC 107 aired from Memphis, Tennessee. But with each passing bout, the realization hit home that this was one night that should have belonged to the former light heavyweight champion.

“Seeing how well BJ (Penn) performed, and Kenny Florian and everybody looked so good, I was like ‘I could be out there, I could be done right now,’” Evans told UFC.com. “They had a great crowd in Memphis, the energy was there, and I was like ‘damn I wish I could have been there.’”

He was supposed to be, facing off against his Ultimate Fighter 10 coaching rival Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, but when Jackson opted to make his Hollywood debut in the upcoming A-Team film, Evans was left without an opponent for the UFC 107 card. Yet when everything came down in September, it didn’t come as a complete shock to Evans.

“At first I was kinda surprised, but then I thought back to being on the show and how much time he (Jackson) was dedicating to going to acting classes,” said Evans. “They didn’t show it on camera, but a lot of times he would miss practice and just have (assistant coach) Tiki (Ghosn) and those guys run practice because he was taking acting classes. So in hindsight, it kinda made sense.”

It didn’t make much sense to fight fans who wanted to see the bout, and as the taped episodes of The Ultimate Fighter hit the Spike TV airwaves, anticipation grew even more as week by week, the tension between the two former 205-pound champs escalated. Yet all Evans could do is look on helplessly.

“Watching the show and all the talking, I was like, ‘man, all of this was just for nothing,’” he said. “Sometimes, I could tell what my mindset was when I watched it on TV and I slowly saw my mind change and how really angry I’m getting. When it started it was a little playful banter type of messing around. Then it got really serious and then it got to the point where all I kept thinking about was punching him in the face every time I saw him.”

On Saturday night, Evans will step into the Octagon to punch somebody, but it won’t be Jackson. Instead, “Suga” will face off against Brazilian powerhouse Thiago Silva in a bout that marks his second straight Christmas away from his family.

“This is the second time in a row I’m gonna miss the holidays, but it’s gonna be worth it,” he said. “I’m gonna go in there and enjoy being out there and make this my Christmas and my New Year’s celebration.”

It’s the perfect mindset for Evans to be in, and he sounds genuinely excited, not just about the fight, but about who he’s fighting. It’s not for the reason you think though, as while Evans wouldn’t mind getting one back for his good friend and training partner, Keith Jardine, who was halted in a single round by Silva, his motivation centers more on testing himself against a fighter who has gotten a lot better and scarier since they were first scheduled to scrap back in 2008.

“I was supposed to fight him a couple years ago, and then I got to fight Chuck Liddell,” recalled Evans. “I was kinda excited to fight him then, and now he looks like he’s gotten a lot better, and he looks like an animal now. He got that loss (to Lyoto Machida), and now he’s hungry and doesn’t want that to happen again.”

Evans (18-1-1) is in the same position, hungry to erase the lone loss of his career, which ironically also came to the current light heavyweight champ. He even goes as far as to say that the two may be mirror images of each other.

“I see a lot of myself in him,” said Evans of Silva. “We’ve got a lot of similarities as far as our road in the organization and where we’ve come from.”

The one difference is that Evans has been to the top of the mountaintop in the UFC, having held the championship belt for five months in 2008-2009. But when he faced off against Machida last May, nothing clicked and he lost both the title and his unbeaten record. As far as Evans (one of the most cerebral fighters in the game, was concerned) eventually losing was inevitable, but now he wonders if that was a good thing to have in the back of his mind.

“I’m mad that I even conceded to that fact,” he admits. “Somebody will always say that you only gain so much before you lose, but who says that that has to be? Maybe that’s somebody else’s reality, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be mine. So I found myself saying ‘yeah, I’m winning now, but I’m probably gonna lose one day.’ And I accepted that into my reality, and reality is what you make it, and it definitely came to fruition.”

Evans admitted before the Machida fight that when he won the title from Forrest Griffin that it didn’t hit him the way he expected it to. Yet ask him if he misses having the belt, and he’s on the fence about it.

“Yes and no. Yes in the sense of fighting for the belt and being the one to be sought after – I miss that. But I don’t miss the distractions that it brought with me and that I allowed to corrupt my mind.”

And now, back in the role of contender, Evans has found peace as he gears up for another run at the top that he expects will result in a much longer reign than his first one.

“I just want to go out there and fight and compete, that’s all I’m looking for,” he said. “That’s where I really should have been, but a lot of things that I didn’t think we’re going to be distracting did end up bothering me. It bothered me that I was perceived a certain way by people and I wasn’t that person at all, and it ate at me a little bit. That’s one thing I don’t have to worry about anymore. People are gonna have their opinions about me, but now I can fight and not have to prove anything. I just have to go out there and do my best.”

Is he surprised that it took this long to get to this point?

“I am,” he laughs. “If it came any sooner I probably wouldn’t have respected it as much. I think everything has its timing, and this was right on time for me.”

That also goes for his changing public perception, which was helped along greatly by his coaching stint on The Ultimate Fighter.

“I’ve seen a big change,” said Evans. “I’ve had people come up to me and actually be like ‘man, I used to hate your guts, but now that I got to see you on the reality show, I think you’re pretty cool.’ They go in depth on how they used to hate me. I don’t know if I should say ‘thank you’ or not. (Laughs) But one thing that I failed to realize, being in the sport and being in the public eye, is how much that 15 minutes or whatever that people perceive of you can really last in their minds. Now I understand it a lot more.”

Evans also understands the fight game a lot more as well, and that it’s not always about beating the person next to you on the event poster.

“I’m gonna look across the cage and see no face,” said Evans of Saturday night. “I’m just gonna go out there to compete against myself. You try not to make fighting personal or such a big deal because you do it on a daily basis, and the only person you really have to compete against is yourself. I’m gonna go out there, push myself, and try to make myself tired, and if I do all those things, I’ll undoubtedly break my opponent.”