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UFC 130: Does Rampage Jackson Have Any Desire to Be Elite in the UFC?

It seems that Quinton Jackson has no desire to be an elite MMA fighter anymore. He said in a recent interview that he is simply now fighting for the money and wants to move on to acting as soon as that pays him more. That’s fine, because if he is…

First of all, if Quinton really has no desire left to be an MMA fighter, then who wants to pay to see him fight? As soon as I heard that the third Gray Maynard-Frankie Edgar fight had been called off, my stomach sank because I knew that Rampage-Matt Hamill would now be the main event that we would all be stuck with.

I personally feel that Jackson will dispatch of Hamill fairly easily at the MGM Grand Garden Arena at UFC 130, May 28. What is unfortunate is the fact that he has such major talent, yet he forever seems like he does not care and chooses to squander it. I will give two glaring examples that will illustrate my point.

First of all, look at how he coached on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) in his two appearances. He was subpar, and I am being nice by putting it that way. On season 10 he coached heavyweight fighters, and he chose to pick Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson first?! That move made me scratch my head.

Then he seemed to care little about training his fighters and molding them into future mixed martial arts champions—and that is why he was on the show. He was also there to promote a fight with Rashad Evans that was supposed to take place after TUF in Jackson’s hometown of Memphis. Rampage would have drawn a great crowd in support of him.

Instead he took an acting role in the A-Team movie and decided to make the UFC and his fans wait. That was a mistake in my opinion, especially from a guy that still pretended to care about MMA at that point.

Secondly, Rampage clearly does not have a desire to be an elite mixed martial artist or regain his title because of the fact that he is never in shape to fight these days.

He admitted that when he was slated to fight Forrest Griffin and defend his UFC light heavyweight title in the summer of 2008, he had been playing video games and eating pizza and was horribly out of shape before his training camp. He still nearly won that fight! After having his lead leg battered badly, he was able to finish the fight and nearly win it.

On the Prime Time show to promote his fight with Rashad Evans, Jackson made it a point to say he was training harder than he had in his life. Come to find out it was because he showed up to his camp at 252 pounds and was slated to fight a top fighter, Rashad Evans, at 205 a mere two months and change later. He was able to blitz Rashad in the third and may have put him away had he possessed the cardio conditioning to do so.

I used to be a huge Rampage Jackson fan. I have paid to see him on pay-per-view, and I paid to go watch him in Ohio for UFC 96, but if he no longer cares about fighting, the sport in general or his fans, then I find it hard to want to support him. How can we care about Quinton’s career if he doesn’t care himself?

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UFC 130: 5 Reasons Frank Mir Will Defeat Roy Nelson

Frank Mir and Roy Nelson enter the Octagon at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on much different career paths. Mir has had his ups and downs in his career and now looks to get back into title contention with a win over the Ultimate Fighter season 10 winner. Nelson is on his way up and looks to rebound from his loss to Junior Dos Santos—his first loss in the UFC.

Mir wants to reclaim the heavyweight title very badly and Nelson is hungry for a win after coming off a loss. At the present, each man is completing their final weeks of training before they clash at UFC 130 on May 28, 2011. I will present five reasons that Mir will emerge victorious.

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UFC: Interview with UFC Rising Prospect Daniel “Danny Boy” Downes

“Danny Boy” Downes is a young, hungry up-and-coming fighting out of the Roufusport camp in Wisconsin. The 25-year-old fighter was born in Chicago and moved to Wisconsin after college to train and pursue a career as a mixed martial arti…

“Danny Boy” Downes is a young, hungry up-and-coming fighting out of the Roufusport camp in Wisconsin.

The 25-year-old fighter was born in Chicago and moved to Wisconsin after college to train and pursue a career as a mixed martial artist. Downes fought twice in the WEC before that company was absorbed in the UFC last winter.

He headlines the North American Fighting Championship’s Mayhem event in Milwaukee on Friday May 6 while waiting to get a shot at fighting in the big show.

Q: Where did you get the Danny Boy nickname?

A: At the gym, I was always the skinny Irish kid. That’s where that came from. I’m not a natural athlete by any means, so I’ve gotten to this point with hard work and toughness, and I’m scrappy kinda like Mickey Ward almost. So that’s how the Danny Boy thing came about. I’m a hard-nosed scrappy type.

Q: You fight at lightweight, and I noticed you are 6-feet tall. Is that a natural weight for you or do you cut to get down to 155?

A: I have to cut. I just have a thinner frame. So I think lightweight is the best weight for me to train at. As I get older, I’m only 25 now, I may move to welterweight. I think right now lightweight is the best for me especially because I usually have a height advantage. I don’t think you will ever see me going to featherweight or below. I know that guys like George Roop do it but I already have to cut to make 155 so that is not for me.

Q: I see you train at Duke Roufus’ gym. Who else besides Pat Barry trains there?

A: It’s me, Pat Barry, Anthony Pettis, Eric Cope. Alan Belcher comes in from time to time, and we also just got Ben Askren. We got a bunch of up-and-coming guys that people haven’t heard of. It’s really grown. There was a time for a while a few years ago when it was just me a couple other guys fighting and goin’ so it was kinda hard. It’s different now, and it’s fun to have guys like Anthony and Eric on that high level which makes everyone better.

Q: I was reading that Pat was pretty down after his last fight because he couldn’t put Beltran away. Has he gotten past that?

A: It’s what they say with baseball hitters how they have to have a short memory. It’s the same way with fighters. Everyone wants to finish fights but let it bother you. He can’t worry about Joey Beltran when he has Cheick Kongo coming up in June. He’s already forgotten about it. You gotta have that short memory. You can’t let setbacks drag you down. You just gotta go on to the next one.

Q: Your record is 7-1. Was that loss early in your career or was that recently?

A: It was at WEC 49 against Chris Horodecki. I got a call on that Tuesday from my manager and he asked me where what my weight was at. And I was thinking I probably have a fight coming up on short notice. I figured it was local Wisconsin fight or something and he asked me if I was to fight Chris Horodecki in Edmonton on the WEC card. The only problem was I was kinda out of shape. I’d been drinking and a few things like that and had let myself go a bit. I was like 178 on Tuesday and made 156 on Saturday. I fought Chris Horodecki in front of however many thousand people on Versus. I didn’t perform that well but it got my foot in the door and then I got that win against Zhang in my next fight last December at WEC 53. Now I got the UFC contract and we’ll see what happens next.

Q: So you are headlining the NAFC Mayhem card correct?

A: Yes.

Q: When I was looking it up it said to be announced. Do you know who you are fighting yet?

A: Yea. I fighting a guy named Tory Bogguess. I don’t really know that much about him. You can’t get too bogged down with the little details. I don’t have any recent film on the guy but you can’t worry about that you just got to go out there and perform regardless that is my job. Even in my last fight against Zhang at WEC 53 I watched a lot of tape, but fight went the exact opposite of my gameplan. That’s why in MMA you’ve got to train everything. You try to pigeon hole yourself into any one thing.

Q: Are you more comfortable standing or do you train everything equally?

A: When I started, I was a strike first and then we’ll see what happens on the ground. But, now I’ve changed. GSP is a perfect example of what the modern MMA fighter needs to be. He is great at everything. By being good it opens up a lot of other things. By having good wrestling or jiu jitsu, it opens up my striking and makes it better. The days of the one dimensional MMA fighter is over. Everybody is getting good at everything.

Q: Do you ever travel to a different gym or try out any other schools? I know that guys do that a lot these days.

A: It’s been really nice with the success of our gym. Guys come in and we get new people a lot. I haven’t had to leave. These days they want to train at our gym so it’s like they come to me. The gym has really exploded and we have some new instructors so it’s been really good. You can’t get stale or do the same thing. One you get bored and two you don’t get better. You gotta keep it fresh and keep getting better.

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MMA Video: Frank Mir Talks Roy Nelson and Strikeforce Heavyweights

Frank Mir’s career has featured peaks and valleys.He was once the most feared heavyweight in the UFC, a man that snapped Tim Sylvia’s arm like a toothpick. However, a motorcycle crash soon followed that threatened to end his career.Mir came s…

Frank Mir’s career has featured peaks and valleys.

He was once the most feared heavyweight in the UFC, a man that snapped Tim Sylvia’s arm like a toothpick. However, a motorcycle crash soon followed that threatened to end his career.

Mir came surging back in 2007 and 2008 with wins over Antoni Hardonk, Brock Lesnar and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank found himself as the interim UFC heavyweight champion.

This honor was short-lived, and he dropped subsequent fights to Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin in a couple of the most brutal knockout losses in recent memory.

Frank has since rebounded again by knocking out Mirko Cro Cop and now looks to get back into the upper crust of the heavyweight division when he fights Roy “Big Country” Nelson at UFC 130 on May 28th.

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UFC: Jake Shields Hopes for Another Shot at Belt Before Retirement

Jake Shields clearly wanted to get Georges St-Pierre to the ground at UFC 129 and he tried to do just that for a round or so. Then, at some point, he lost focus and decided to try and trade shots with the champion. It was a horrible idea an…

It was the first loss for Jake Shields in over six years and clearly he was not happy with his performance after the fight.

MMAjunkie.com was there to get his thoughts. Shields told MMAjunkie, “Obviously I’m not happy. I went in there, and I came up short. Georges has great stand-up, and he kept me away. I couldn’t get him down. He did a great job of stuffing my shots.”

Shields failed to close the distance, get the clinch and take the fight to the ground. He admitted that he was no match for the boxing and overall standup prowess of the champion. “I guess I need to go back, work on my boxing, and get better,” Shields admitted.

Shields showed remorse over not trying to get the fight to the ground but he had few weapons to turn to when he when his takedown attempts failed.

Shields lamented about his gameplan and how it was a failure. “I don’t know. He stuffed my first couple shots. I don’t know why I started boxing him. I should have just started shooting. It’s easy to look back now and be like, ‘I really screwed that up.’ Georges is a great fighter. He fought great. He was evasive, and I couldn’t get after him. He had a great game plan.”

Shields vowed to make improvements and to eventually make it back to contender status. “Hopefully before I retire, I’ll get another title shot,” he said.

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