Esther Lin – MMA Fighting
It took Fedor Emelianenko less than three minutes to KO Quinton Jackson, which may be just the encouragement “Rampage” needs to return to light heavyweight.
“Rampage?” More like “Hampage.”
Fedor Emelianenko made quick work of Quinton Jackson on Sunday afternoon in Saitama Super Arena, taking out the former UFC light heavyweight champ in just under three minutes (watch the finish here). We didn’t see much from Jackson during that time. He looked old and tentative and slow. Honestly, he looked fat. The former 205 pound fighter hit the scales for Bellator Japan at 265 pounds, a mark he only met after 12 weeks of hard work at The Treigning Lab. That got him to the heavyweight limit but we don’t know if we’d qualify him as being in fighting shape.
”Rampage” seems to agree with that assessment. In a since-deleted Instagram video, he went into the loss to Emelianenko.
”Win some lose some get paid for all,” he wrote in the Tweet promoting the original Instagram, which did not help stymie the growing tide of opinion that he’s not taking his fighting career seriously enough.
“Sorry guys we didn’t get the outcome we wanted, but you know what, I knew one of us was going to get knocked out,” Jackson said. “But I didn’t know it was going to be f**king me. But you know what? I ain’t mad, though. You win some, you lose some. You get paid for all. Y’all remember that. It’s all good – I’m not in a bad mood. I just know what I got to do. I got to get my damn weight down. I felt like a hippopotamus out there. But that’s my fault. No excuses. It’s all right. I’ll be back. But I ain’t coming back at heavyweight. I’ve got to lose this weight.”
The ‘fat hippo’ post was deleted shortly after and replaced with a simpler message.
”When that bag secured and the ladies waiting back in the room ??,” Jackson wrote. “I’ll never do a fixed fight Fador (sic) won fair, i have to get my weight down, that loss was on me. Non fighters need to Much love to my real fans, you win some lose some.”
Jackson has been fighting at heavyweight since rejoining Bellator in 2016 – his first fight against Satoshi Ishii saw him come in at 224.9 pounds. He was up to 253 pounds when he lost to Chael Sonnen at Bellator 192 in January of 2018 and is currently 2-3 on this run. There just haven’t been many good moments since “Rampage” put on all that weight, which is unsurprising.
Age comes for everyone and Jackson is now 41. Slogging about the cage with an extra 60 pounds has the once quick and deadly fighter looking like he’s trapped in mud. Everyone knew coming in that this was a bout between fading legends, but at least Emelianenko still had something to give.
We have no doubt Bellator will offer “Rampage” more bags should he want them, but fan apathy will continue to grow until he proves he’s stepping into the ring for pride and not just pay.