I’ll give Quinton Jackson this much: at least he’s not being wishy-washy.
Jackson said over the weekend that he wanted out of the UFC, and he reiterated that belief on Monday during an interview with Bas Rutten for Inside MMA. HDNet has made the full and unedited phone conversation available for listening, and it’s a fascinating look into the psyche of a man many of us will never understand.
I know I don’t.
Let’s take a look at a few of Jackson’s better quotes.
I don’t want to fight for the UFC. I think the fans don’t understand. They think that just because I make a lot of money, I should be happy because I’ve got a nice house. I’ve always said that I fight for money because it’s my career, but I think a lot of fans are sheep, and they don’t understand it.The thing is, the UFC knew I was injured, and I still fought for them. I feel like, honestly, if I didn’t fight on that card in Japan, I don’t think the appeal would have been as big. I’m not trying to toot my own horn or nothing like that. But they only had me and Mark Hunt.
This is interesting. According to my own sources close to the UFC, Jackson turned down three separate fights before finally agreeing to fight Ryan Bader in Japan. Jackson also threw a major tantrum in order to be included on the Japan card instead of fighting on the second FOX show from Chicago.
So, after turning down three perfectly capable opponents, Jackson gets stuck with a wrestler. He loses the fight, then complains when the UFC doesn’t shower him with adulation for gutting out an injury to fight on a card he demanded to fight on in the first place.
I think Joe Silva needs to be slapped in the face. I’m sorry, you’ve got a fighter like me who likes to go out there and fight fights.So why do you keep giving me wrestlers who are going to take me down and hump me?
Another curious quote here. Shogun Rua isn’t a wrestler. Lyoto Machida isn’t a wrestler. Stephan Bonnar could be a wrestler, I guess, but he always seems to prefer a good, ugly striking battle. That would seem to fit right into Jackson’s wheelhouse.
And yet, according to sources close to the promotion, Jackson turned down fights with all three of those opponents over the past year for one reason or another.
I think what happened was that I did an interview with this one guy and he recorded it. I thought he was going to put it up just like you’re doing. But no, he took some of it and typed it. And the guy who typed it was a British guy. He didn’t understand my English. He didn’t understand my accent. He just typed some stuff that he thought I said, which is wrong.
I think they tried to say that I had like a UFC doctor give it to me or something like that, which is wrong. I had my personal doctor. He gets paid by the UFC. He’s my personal doctor, but I don’t have to pay him. He just sends the bill to UFC basically is what I said.
So that’s why I said the UFC knew I was hurt. I don’t know if the UFC knew what I was doing. But the UFC paid me to see him. He sent me to another doctor. The doctor that he sent me to, I pay him. The UFC doesn’t pay the doctor who did the TRT. I pay that TRT.
This is a much better explanation for the interview Jackson gave regarding his testosterone replacement therapy, and I take him at his word. These things sometime happen in translation.
But Jackson should have acted much quicker in getting this clarified, because it could’ve become a much uglier situation than it did over the past week.
This seems like a situation that cannot be rectified. Jackson’s mind is made up, and I’m not sure there’s anything Dana White and the UFC can do to fix it.
Two years ago, I would have stressed the urgency of getting this thing repaired as soon as possible. Now? I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle. Jackson’s days as a contender at light heavyweight are through. He’s going to continually be a headache for White and Joe Silva. And he’s already been dominated once by Jon Jones, which means fans won’t be clamoring to see him climb the ladder into championship contention a second time around.
Quinton Jackson is an absolute legend of the sport. He’s been one of my absolute favorite fighters to cover and watch over the past decade. I’d like to see him retire from fighting in the biggest show in the world and go on to be a huge action star in Hollywood.
What I don’t want to see is his career end with complaints, lawsuits and ugly fights against no-name competition at local shows on Indian reservations.
Nobody wants that.
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