Tag: Rampage Jackson

Filed under: UFC, News

DETROIT — Rampage Jackson has repeatedly stated his belief that he is a fighter, and Lyoto Machida is a mixed martial artist, and that there is a significant difference. The former has a willingness to take risks and endanger himself in an attempt to finish the fight; the latter is more prone to take the safe route to victory.

But Jackson said there’s a price to pay for what he belives is Machida’s reluctance to engage: he doesn’t know how to take a hit. Jackson said it’s a fact that became obvious to him while watching Machida’s most recent fights.

“I watched that fight with Shogun,” he said. “No disrespect to Machida, but he was punching at the same time. They punched at the same time, and me being a fighter, I could tell that that wasn’t a really strong punch that dropped him. It comes with a price, not getting hit. So that tells me that if he’s not getting hit in fights, he damn sure ain’t getting hit in sparring.

Filed under: UFC

DETROIT — There is a saying that some people use in the MMA world that goes like this: If you’ve never lost, you’re not fighting the right people. For a time, Lyoto Machida seemed to turn that saying on its ear. He had fought BJ Penn and Tito Ortiz, Rashad Evans and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, and yet a zero still followed the dash on his record.

After he captured the UFC light-heavyweight belt, more than a few declared it the “Lyoto Machida era,” sure that he would become a dominant champion with a lengthy reign. But it wasn’t long before the rematch with Rua proved what we already knew: that if you fight long enough, you will lose. You will have an off-day or someone will simply be better than you on one night.

But what happens next? What we’ve also learned in MMA is that how you rebound from losing is what ultimately defines you. Some guys fall apart, some are filled with self-doubt, and others simply re-double their efforts to ensure they will give themselves every chance to win in the future. At UFC 123, against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Machida will take that crucial step of stepping into a cage after rebuilding broken confidence.

Filed under: UFC

When a UFC fighter goes on SportsCenter two days before his fight, he’s usually expected to try to sell the viewers on a fight that he guarantees is going to be a “brawl” or a “barn burner” or a “slugfest” or whatever other word you want to use to describe the kinds of fights that will make the casual MMA fan watching ESPN buy the pay-per-view.

That’s not what Rampage Jackson did on Thursday morning.

Instead, Jackson went on SportsCenter and described his fight with Lyoto Machida Saturday night at UFC 123 as one that could easily be boring.