After taking some time away from the Octagon to make some big changes, Rashad Evans is back and ready to rumble in Madison Square Garden at UFC 205 on Nov. 12.

Moving to middleweight

Speaking earlier this week on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, Evans spoke about his decision to drop to middleweight having lost four out of his last six at light heavyweight. The former UFC 205-pound champion said that it had been a move he'd been contemplating for a while and that now felt like the right time to pull the trigger on it.

"Dropping to 185 pounds is the perfect thing for me," Evans said. "Now I've really got to make sure that I do everything correctly as far as taking care of my weight.

"I've been flirting round with the idea for years now. I was never the biggest light heavyweight. I'd come in at 5-10 pounds over the limit at the most on fight week, meanwhile, my competition is coming in at 15-20 pounds heavier so they were cutting a lot more than me."

Life's issues all coming at once

Evans' losing run coincided with a difficult period in his life where he also had several personal issues to deal with outside of the Octagon. Thankfully for the Blackzilians leader, these hard times to appear to be in the rearview mirror, but Evans admitted it was hard to deal with everything coming at once.

"Different aspects of my life really took over my mindset," Evans said. "I got a divorce, started a new relationship, had another child and all these things add weight on to your mind. You don't really think it at the time because you're going through it, but slowly and slowly you start to get pulled away from what got you to where you are.

"After I got knocked out by Glover Teixeira after a minute and a half, I was overwhelmingly embarrassed and disappointed because that was the fight that I was going to show the world that I've still got it. Everybody slept on me and I went and s**t the bed. I couldn't believe it as I'd convinced myself that I was going to win the fight and it made me sick."

Facing Tim Kennedy at UFC 205

Having taken some time away to sort himself out and make the adjustments for a middleweight run, Evans now finds himself on the biggest fight card of the year at Madison Square Garden at UFC 205 in November. Evans faces Tim Kennedy, a man Evans says he generally gets on well with.

"I'm excited to be on this card with a bunch of killers and be a part of something so huge," Evans said. "I'm on the prelims that's how stacked this card is, I've never been on the prelims in my life.

"Tim and I were really cool. I have a lot of respect for what he's done and from a service standpoint for this country. I was disappointed he was trying to talk s**t to me. We're in the fight business, this is what we do, this is how we eat, I love to fight and I make money doing it."

Seemingly, Evans' dislike of s**t talk extends to social media.

"I like to be a positive person, always happy and joking around, but people giving me s**t bothers me. I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I love it because it's entertaining, but at the same time I hate it because it's ruining society a bit."

His respect for Michael Bisping

With a new weight division to compete in, Evans now has a new target to set his focus on. Michael Bisping currently sits proudly on top of the middleweight pile and is a man Evans currently holds a victory over from way back in 2007. Suffice to say, Evans has a lot of respect for the Brit.

"You don't get a sense of just how good he is when you watch videos of him, but when you're in the cage with him you come out with a huge respect," Evans said. "It was one thing for him to get a shot at the title but then to win it, I was so happy for him. He's had to do so much to get to where he is right now and he never gave up on himself even when other people did."