Former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has not been able to voice his opinion at any point in his career, but he has been especially vocal ever since his unanimous decision loss to Ryan Bader at UFC 144.
Jackson, who will have surgery on both knees, revealed that the only way he was able to go through with his bout with Bader was with the help of testosterone replacement therapy.
When Rampage appeared on Sherdog’s Savage Dog Show, he rationalized using TRT by comparing it to several other standard medical procedures.
“If I was losing my hair and the doctor told me, ‘You need a hair transplant,’ I’m going to do a hair transplant. If I get my tooth knocked out like Randy Couture did against [Lyoto] Machida, I’m going to get a new tooth put in my mouth.If my testosterone gets low and the doctor tells me, ‘You need to raise your levels back up to where you used to be when you were 25,’ and you’re fighting these young folks, I’m going to go do it. I feel like it’s a medical condition.
The former PRIDE star put the icing on the cake with these comments:
“I have to say this. I have to say this and maybe some people will get mad, but I feel like whoever’s getting mad at me for healing myself up, [there’s] an old saying, a slave mentality, like, ‘Oh, how dare you make yourself 100 percent to be fighting out there.’ That’s what comes to my mind.”
Despite soundly losing to Bader, Jackson believes that when healthy, TRT will ensure that he has plenty of good fights left in him.
“Now, I feel like I’m 25 again,” he said. “I’m going to be fighting for as long as I want to fight.”
Rampage will rematch Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in late 2012 or early 2013 for the last fight on his UFC contract. Shogun won the first fight, under the PRIDE banner back in 2005, via first-round TKO.
TRT is quickly becoming one of the most hotly contested subjects in MMA, and Rampage Jackson is the main fighter keeping the topic relevant right now.
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