Rashad Evans is set to return to MMA when he takes on Gabriel Checco at Eagle FC 44. The return marks his first fight since he was in the UFC back in 2018. He had hit a big losing skid and ended his career on a low note.

Rashad Evans is now coming back to MMA to fight for Khabib Nurmagomedov's promotion, Eagle FC. He's staying realistic about the way his career could look now that he's back.

“It’s one [fight] and let’s see what happens,” Evans said on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I’m 42 years old and I’m not disillusioned to the point where I’m thinking I’m going to go on another five years of being able to compete at the highest level.

“I’m competing against guys who are a lot younger and have different ambitions where they want to be in the fight game. So it’s different. I’m working at a disadvantage here in that sense but at the same time, I do enjoy it and I still want to go out there and still show what I got.”

The time was now for Rashad Evans to make his return to MMA. COVID was shutting everything down and waiting for things to come back to normal just didn't seem like an option with everything shutting down.

“With the way things are with COVID and things that are still going on with COVID as far as all the different restrictions and all the things we’re being subjected to, it almost felt as if we’re running out of time to do the thing that we truly want to do,” Evans said. “Because every single day you inch closer and closer to having more restrictions put on us.

“A lot of people don’t like to think about it. A lot of people don’t like to talk about it but the reality of the situation is if you look at other countries, they’re on lockdown and some of them are facing some crazy, drastic measures and when you look the roadmap of where the world is headed, it just doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a world that allows this freedom of expression. So for someone that truly loves this as a freedom of expression, if can just do this one more time, then I wanted to do it.”

There's nothing to prove at this point for Rashad Evans, he's done many great things in his MMA career. He's won The Ultimate Fighter and became UFC champion. This comeback is for him, not anyone else.

“I’m just doing it for me,” Evans said. “That’s what this whole journey from when I retired has been about. My whole experiences, the journey that I’ve been on. Just finding myself again outside of the sport, it was really about me getting back to me. Competing from that place where I’ve come to learn myself from because I feel as if when I was competing, I started out one way but then just getting caught and being part of the flow of things and getting caught in the fame of it all.

“You kind of lose a part of yourself that’s there when you first started. The one that enjoys every single part of it and just yearns to do it on a different level. I lost connection with that part. I’m at the point now where I really, really love it again and I’m in love with fighting again.”