Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is scheduled to fight Matt Hamill at UFC 130 on Saturday, May 28. The two light heavyweights will face off in the main event on the card.A recently released commercial that Jackson did for one of his sponsors, Boost Mobile, ha…
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is scheduled to fight Matt Hamill at UFC 130 on Saturday, May 28. The two light heavyweights will face off in the main event on the card.
A recently released commercial that Jackson did for one of his sponsors, Boost Mobile, has been making the rounds as of late. In the two-minute video, Jackson uses his BS detection skills to figure out, when he is being fed a line of BS.
In the video Jackson is faced with an investor, a healer, an oil company representative and a illusionist, all of whom trigger an “Involuntary physical response” from the former UFC light heavyweight champion. As Rampage says, “some people are just simply full of ****”
Let’s say, for the sake of wild, purely speculative conversation, that Quinton “Rampage” Jackson could stay home this Saturday night.
Say he could press a magic button (years of TV and movies have taught me that this button would necessarily be big and red, and may or may not be covered by a glass case) and create a Rampage clone that would go and fight for him at UFC 130. Say Real Rampage would get the money and Clone Rampage would do all the work, make the decisions, and live with the pain of defeat or the satisfaction of victory, but to the rest of the world the two would be indistinguishable.
My question isn’t whether Jackson would choose to press the magic button under these circumstances. That’s too easy. Obviously he would press it. The way he talks about his fighting career these days, I don’t think you could keep him away from that button with a pack of wolves and a stun gun.
But say he pressed the button. Say he sent Clone Rampage out into the Las Vegas night to do his bidding against Matt Hamill. My question is: would Real Rampage, still lodged comfortably at home, bother to buy the pay-per-view so he could watch what happened? Or would he decide to do something else instead, maybe opting to find out the results via text message later that night?
This is the question I can’t answer, and it’s also why I don’t know what to make of the current state of Jackson’s MMA career.
To hear him tell it, fighting is just something to fill the time and earn a paycheck between movie roles. The minute he gets paid more to act than he does to fight, Jackson has said, he’s out of here. Nobody can fight forever, and he doesn’t particularly want to try.
Which is completely reasonable to most of us. If you can get paid more for sitting around on movie sets eating organic potato chips than you can for spending weeks living like a monk in training camp and waking up sore every morning, that’s not too tough a decision for most people.
Then again, there’s a reason most people don’t become pro fighters, and a complete lack of skill and athleticism is only part of it.
What it comes down to is a lack of enthusiasm. All fighters have to have it to begin with, because when you’re just starting out the money isn’t good enough to justify doing it for any other reason. Unless you’re Brock Lesnar. Or maybe Bobby Lashley.
But when Jackson made his pro debut in 1999 against a 175-pound Mike Pyle in Memphis, he did it for no more than a couple hundred bucks and a chance to punch someone in the face without legal repercussions.
I don’t know what mix of ambition and anger and competitive zeal was driving that Rampage, but it seems to have evaporated in the eleven-plus years since then. Now when he talks about upcoming fights he seems to be the person least interested in the conversation. Even when he deigns to dredge up some the charisma that made him a fan favorite – such as he did last night on ‘The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson‘ – he still seems far more enthusiastic about the after-party than the fight.
It makes you wonder, what exactly is Jackson trying to accomplish in MMA at this point? Is he only after the money? The fame? Is it nothing more than a way to keep him in the limelight just long enough to hold the interest movie producers? Or does he still want to etch a legacy for himself beyond what he’s already accomplished in the sport? Does he want to be champion? He’s still quite good at it, but does he actually want to participate in the physical act of fighting?
It’s hard to come up with a clear answer right now, and that’s a problem. This is the same Jackson who recently turned down a title shot because he thought six weeks wasn’t enough time to prepare. It’s also the one who waffles between mild interest and complete apathy when the subject of his next fight comes up.
Not only is he not fired up about fighting for a living, he rarely even pretends to be. I don’t know what that means for his immediate future in pro fighting, but it’s probably not the best sign for his acting career. If he can’t convince fans that he’s in the cage because he truly wants to be, how’s he ever going to convince movie audiences that he’s an entirely different person?
Bleacher Report’s Mike Hodges:Over his past couple fights, UFC bantamweight Miguel Torres has learned a lot about himself.Since training with Firas Zahabi, the head trainer of TriStar Gym in Montreal, Quebec, the former WEC standout has quickly trani…
Bleacher Report’s Mike Hodges:
Over his past couple fights, UFC bantamweight Miguel Torres has learned a lot about himself.
Since training with Firas Zahabi, the head trainer of TriStar Gym in Montreal, Quebec, the former WEC standout has quickly tranistioned into a different fighter. Prior to making several visits to Zahabi, Torres was on a two-fight losng streak. The losses taught him a lesson about himself and Torres knew he needed to make a change.
“When I first met Firas, within the first ten minutes, he told me exactly what my problem was. He’s like, `You look like the kind of guy that is trying to take care of too many people and not taking care of yourself,’” Torres said to Heavy.com.
The former WEC bantamweight champion said he saw the weaknesses in his own game not too long after training with Zahabi, a choice he decided to make following his knockout loss to Brian Bowles at WEC 42 that saw him relenquish the title to his opponent. Ever since his loss to Bowles, Torres switched camps and hasn’t looked back.
This Saturday Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, former UFC light heavyweight champion as well as the man who made slamming to escape the triangle choke famous, will take on the unfortunately unheralded Matt “The Hammer” Hamill at UFC 130.Despite the fact that…
This Saturday Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, former UFC light heavyweight champion as well as the man who made slamming to escape the triangle choke famous, will take on the unfortunately unheralded Matt “The Hammer” Hamill at UFC 130.
Despite the fact that Rampage is a favorite, sitting currently at -275, the fight is actually much more balanced than the odds dictate.
So, which fighter will have the upper hand going into Saturday’s main event? Read and find out.
Bleacher Report’s Bryan Levick:The subject of Zuffa’s recent purchase of Strikeforce came up and what that meant for the current crop of UFC heavyweights and Strikeforce’s big men. There has been a lot of talk of super-fights since the acquisiti…
Bleacher Report’s Bryan Levick:
The subject of Zuffa’s recent purchase of Strikeforce came up and what that meant for the current crop of UFC heavyweights and Strikeforce’s big men. There has been a lot of talk of super-fights since the acquisition was announced, but what is the reality of any of those potential match-ups coming to fruition?
“It now means that pretty much every single top 10 heavyweight is under one promotion. I have been with the UFC since 2001 and there was the argument about which organization had the better group of heavyweights, the UFC or Pride,” said Mir.
“Then those guys came over and I beat Nogueira and Mirko and got to lay those arguments to rest in my mind.” “Strikeforce has a pretty solid group of fighters and the argument started between our guys and theirs. I said if their guys are better why are we getting paid more, now that the UFC bought Strikeforce maybe we can find out which organization has the better group of fighters. I look at Overeem as their top guy and I feel as though I would be his best match-up in the UFC. Guys like Brock, Cain and Carwin would expose his weakness which is his wrestling.”
“He has good submissions and is obviously a solid striker so if we fought there would be a lot more action than if he fought one of the wrestlers,” Mir said. “The three guys I mention would look to keep him down and control him to avoid his striking. There’s not a lot of room to move around so if Brock wants to take him down he is going to have a good shot at doing so. Overeem is a K-1 champion and has a really good guillotine, but I think I’d be a really good match-up for him.”
Bleacher Report’s Nick Caron:Zuffa’s new pro-Twitter campaign has been getting quite a bit of publicity lately, this time in the form of consensus No. 2 welterweight Jon Fitch bashing Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz. The former UFC …
Bleacher Report’s Nick Caron:
Zuffa’s new pro-Twitter campaign has been getting quite a bit of publicity lately, this time in the form of consensus No. 2 welterweight Jon Fitch bashing Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz.
The former UFC No. 1 contender took to the social networking website on Saturday, where he tweeted at his AKA trainer Dave Camarillo as well as some fans.
@FitchFigher: @DaveCamarillo why would that fight be good. Diaz got title cause Shields vacated the belt. Paper champ.
@FitchFigher: @DaveCamarillo for realize. GSPvsDiaz=bullshit
@FitchFigher: @NotMrRendo I will be ok to fight by the time they are saying Diaz gsp will fight.
@FitchFigher: @MMAf0rum I’ll fight anyone. I’m out till dec. But I’ll fight anyone hopefully gsp in dec.
The Strikeforce welterweight champion since the belt was created in January 2010, Nick Diaz has been tentatively scheduled to be the next challenger to Georges St-Pierre’s UFC Welterweight Championship.
The situation surround that potential fight has been surrounded by controversy, as not only has Diaz been toying with the idea of a professional boxing fight in the near future, but the rumors of a potential Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva superfight continue to swirl around.
Let’s say, for the sake of wild, purely speculative conversation, that 
Zuffa’s new pro-Twitter campaign has been getting quite a bit of publicity lately, this time in the form of consensus No. 2 welterweight Jon Fitch bashing Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz.