MMA icon Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson is not the kind of fighter known for letting his emotions get the best…
MMA icon Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson is not the kind of fighter known for letting his emotions get the best of him. But looking back on his career, the former light heavyweight world champion recalls breaking down in tears following one fight in particular.
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t even one of his own.
During a recent episode of the JAXXON Podcast, ‘Rampage’ reluctantly revealed that he was overcome with emotion following Michael Bisping’s brutal knockout loss to Dan Henderson at UFC 100 in 2009.
“I never cried, but me and Bisping, we was like brothers, especially back then. We’re not as close as now because some bullshit happened between our managers,” Jackson said. “Me, [Cheick] Kongo, and Bisping we was all like brothers. I never cried when I got knocked out, but when Bisping got knocked out the one time — it was him [looks at Henderson] — I cried in the locker room! He got knocked out that bad, I felt really bad. I’m almost ashamed to say it.”
“I felt like, at the time, maybe I didn’t help him good enough in training or something. It was something like that, and I just felt bad for him. I remember crying in the locker room like what the f*ck is wrong with me. Why am I crying? I never cry, it’s weird” (h/t BJPenn.com).
Henderson’s second-round KO of ‘The Count’ is still considered to be one of the greatest knockouts in the history of the sport. However, Michael Bisping did get a bit of redemption seven years later when the pair ran it back at UFC 204. On that night, the former middleweight titleholder defended his 185-pound crown against ‘Hendo’ via unanimous decision.
Former undisputed heavyweight champion, Frank Mir claims he failed to crack the $1,000,000 mark in either of his massive fights with fellow former titleholder, Brock Lesnar during his time with the UFC – featuring in blockbuster pay-per-view fights against the latter on two separate occasions. Mir, a former undisputed heavyweight champion under the banner of […]
Former undisputed heavyweight champion, Frank Mir claims he failed to crack the $1,000,000 mark in either of his massive fights with fellow former titleholder, Brock Lesnar during his time with the UFC – featuring in blockbuster pay-per-view fights against the latter on two separate occasions.
Mir, a former undisputed heavyweight champion under the banner of the UFC, initially met WWE superstar, Lesnar back in 2008 in the co-main event of a UFC 81 card, submitting the latter with a stunning opening round kneebar.
Competing in the main event of the monumental UFC 100 event in the summer of 2009 against Lesnar, Mir would suffer an eventual second round ground strikes TKO loss to the latter.
Frank Mir admits he was not fairly compensated during his UFC tenure
Reflecting on his time with the promotion and his period in various other promotions since his 2016 Octagon departure, Mir revealed he failed to crack the million dollar mark in either of his heralded fights against Lesnar.
“Not at all,” Frank Mir told TalkSPORT reporter, Jordan Ellis when asked if he felt he had been failr compensated during his UFC tenure. “For example, I saw a boxing match between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder – their second fight – I think we [him and Brock Lesnar] breat their pay-per-view buys. Both those guys made multiple millions of dollars, I never hit seven figures. That made me realize, ‘Oh, wow. I was the main event of that card [UFC 100], and I didn’t get seven figures and these guys got eight figures.’”
“It blew my mind,” Frank Mir explained. “And that was probably my first opening to go, ‘This card generated $50,000,000, who made the money?’ So, that’s one of the things that I want to fix about our sport, when a card makes $25,000,000, the company can $10,000,000, but the rest is divided by the fighters.” [Transcribed by MMA Mania]
Billed as the most anticipated event in the history of the promotion, UFC 100 on July 9th, 2009 in Las Vegas proved to be a historic night that more than lived up to the pre-fight hype.
Almost a decade later, we looked back at 10 crazy stories that occurred before, during, and after one of the most memorable events in the sport’s history.
Dana White’s BASE Jump Promise
Caught up in the growing buzz before UFC 100, Dana White got carried away when asked if the event could smash the promotion’s previous record of 1.2 million pay-per-view buys. “1.5 million buys – I’ll jump, I’ll BASE jump off the Mandalay Bay. I promise,” White told the media.
However, when it emerged that UFC 100 had, in fact, hit that lofty target, there was no sign of White perched atop the iconic 39-floor building. But the media was not quick to forget his promise and at the end of the year, he was reluctantly forced to speak about it again.
“I’ve actually been working on it,” White claimed. “I’ve been training for it. I’m going to do it. … I’ve been training with one of the best BASE jumpers in the U.S.
“You guys keep [expletive] pushing me. You guys are the ones doing this to me. That’s what I get for opening my big mouth. I didn’t know we were going to do that many buys. I didn’t know.
“So, I said I’d do it. Now I’m going to do it.”
However, White’s promise proved to be nothing more than hot air as nearly a decade later he still hasn’t gone through with it.
It may sound like a remote possibility, but Frank Mir isn’t ruling out a trilogy match with longtime rival Brock Lesnar. The former UFC heavyweight champ’s rivalry with the hulking WWE champion goes back all the way to Lesnar’s UFC debut in early 2008, where Mir submitted the former NCAA wrestling champion with a perfectly-executed kneebar […]
It may sound like a remote possibility, but Frank Mir isn’t ruling out a trilogy match with longtime rival Brock Lesnar.
The former UFC heavyweight champ’s rivalry with the hulking WWE champion goes back all the way to Lesnar’s UFC debut in early 2008, where Mir submitted the former NCAA wrestling champion with a perfectly-executed kneebar when it appeared Lesnar would smash him right into the octagon floor.
Lesnar got his revenge, of course, after he went on to become the UFC heavyweight champ, battering Mir en route to a TKO stoppage in the main event of 2009’s historic UFC 100 pay-per-view.
Since then, their careers have gone on different paths, as Lesnar left the UFC for WWE in early 2012 and has fought in MMA only once since while Mir signed with Bellator MMA when his most recent contract with the UFC ran out. Mir will meet legendary former PRIDE champion Fedor Emelianenko in his Bellator debut in the main event of this weekend’s (Fri., April 27, 2018) Bellator 198, but while that’s a big enough fight in its own right, Mir won’t close the door on a third bout with Lesnar.
Recently discussing the topic during the media buildup to Bellator 198 this week via MMA News, Mir said he can’t count the possibility out because Lesnar loves money – and a third match-up with Mir would do big numbers in his opinion:
“We’ll see. I still don’t count it out. Brock likes money and I don’t think there’s anybody he could get more pay-per-view buys on than facing me. I feel that fight will still work itself out because of what the financial ramifications are, it just makes sense.”
While it’s safe to say that Lesnar against anyone in MMA would do huge numbers regardless, him closing the book on his longest-tenured rivalry with a second win over Mir would almost assuredly be a huge draw even if both combatants are on the wrong side of 40.
However, it’s far from simple to predict how it would actually happen, with Mir competing for the UFC’s closest competitor and Lesnar still operating as arguably the biggest name in the WWE despite seemingly endless rumors swirling of his UFC return.
So even though it’s a remote dream fight with little chance of actually happening currently, Mir cautioned fans not to rule it out. He never thought he’d be facing the legendary Fedor, either, and here he is:
“Absolutely [it can happen]. I would like to make sure it occurs. Just be patient. I mean who would have thought I would eventually be able to face Fedor?”
A good point to be certain, yet Mir would most likely have to re-sign with the UFC to make it happen, something that appears less than likely at the present juncture.
Like he says, stranger things have happened.
A win over “The Last Emperor” would certainly help his cause for getting the biggest fight in all of heavyweight MMA. Is it one you’re still interested in?
Longtime MMA star Dan Henderson officially retired after his close unanimous decision loss to Michael Bisping in the main event of last night’s (Sat., October 8, 2016) UFC 204 from Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, and he did so in the style that only the heavy-hitting “Hendo” could. A throwback to an earlier era of MMA
Longtime MMA star Dan Henderson officially retired after his close unanimous decision loss to Michael Bisping in the main event of last night’s (Sat., October 8, 2016) UFC 204 from Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, and he did so in the style that only the heavy-hitting “Hendo” could.
A throwback to an earlier era of MMA where fighters fought to compete rather than gather social media followers, “Hendo” went out with a bang by nearly finishing now-champ Bisping in the same fashion in which he so iconically did at 2009’s UFC 100. In the end, the 46-year-old Henderson was edged out by Bisping’s far superior aggression, striking volume, and accuracy, but the two “H-Bombs” that nearly put “The Count’s” lights out in the first and second round were more than enough for most Hendo fans to believe their man had done enough to win.
While that’s a tough proposition to do against the champion in his home (and in a fight where he rarely pushed the action), the once-named “Hollywood” made things as dramatic as ever, and that is why he will go down as one of the most revered fighters in UFC and MMA history.
His story is a unique one. After a Greco Roman wrestling career that twice saw him compete in the Summer Olympics, Henderson first fought in the UFC in only his third MMA fight, defeating Allan Goes by decision on May 15, 1998 before outlasting Carlos Newton on the same night to win the UFC 17 Middleweight Tournament Final. After a string of six decision wins in seven bouts saw him dubbed “Decision Dan,” Hendo refuted the notion by becoming “Hollywood” in Pride due to his highlight reel finishes.
There, he fought a who’s who of Japanese MMA at the time, winning the welterweight championship and defeating Wanderlei Silva for the middleweight belt to become the first simultaneous two-weight champion in Pride. He remains the only man to do so.
In the Octagon, Hendo never won the one title that eluded him, falling just short against elite fighters such as Anderson Silva, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, and Bisping. Obviously he did etch his name into UFC history with possibly the most infamous knockout ever for his one-punch decimation of Bisping at UFC 100.
He even left for Strikeforce after a contract dispute following his historic knockout of Bisping, becoming their 205-pound champion by knocking out Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante. Henderson then knocked out arguably the best heavyweight of all-time when he floored Fedor Emelianenko in 2011.
That was enough for the UFC to re-sign him, and his third UFC run began with a fight that many feel may be the greatest MMA bout of all-time, his classic UFC 139 war with Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. It was the kind of bouts fans came to love and respect from Henderson.
That fight lead to a light heavyweight champion to dominant then-champ Jon Jones, but the bout never happened when Henderson injured his knee and ‘Bones’ refused to fight anyone on short notice, leading to the the promotion’s first ever cancellation of an event with UFC 151.
Hendo never seemed to quite bounce back from the over yearlong layoff that resulted, dropping narrow, uninspired split decisions to Lyoto Machida and Rashad Evans in 2013 before he was knocked out by the almost superhuman force of TRT-era Vitor Belfort (yes, it also deserves to be noted that Henderson was a pioneer of sorts of TRT use in MMA, being one of the first to secure a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) for the treatment).
His UFC run ended with seven losses in his last 10 bouts, but any MMA fan couldn’t help but forget all about those when Henderson rallied to knock out Hector Lombard with, of all things, a back-elbow, head kick, forearm smash combination at UFC 199. It was enough to get him a revenge-based title shot against Bisping despite the backlash due to the bout’s accused refusal to adhere to anything close to resembling a fair rankings system.
It happened, and Henderson and Bisping delivered a classic. True, Henderson came up just short, but even the Manchester fans gave him a rousing ovation after he nearly knocked out their famed hometown champion on more than one occasion.
Henderson was a throwback of MMA gone past who still brought the excitement needed to gain attention in today’s increasingly fast-paced, attention-starved world. There simply won’t be another fighter like him, and while he may not have had his hand raised every time, it was most certainly guaranteed you would be seeing a show.
“Hendo,” “Hollywood,” “Dangerous,” or even “Decision Dan,” Henderson was, is, and always will be an MMA legend. In his case, the UFC belt doesn’t prove or disprove that, yet he battled the only way he knew how to in one last war last with Bisping night.
The UFC middleweight championship, along with a chance at revenge, was on the line for the newly-crowned Michael Bisping when he met rival Dan Henderson in the main event of tonight’s (Sat., October 8, 2016) UFC 204 from Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. And “The Count” got it, but it wasn’t without adversity. Bisping used his superior
The UFC middleweight championship, along with a chance at revenge, was on the line for the newly-crowned Michael Bisping when he met rival Dan Henderson in the main event of tonight’s (Sat., October 8, 2016) UFC 204 from Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
And “The Count” got it, but it wasn’t without adversity. Bisping used his superior speed and technical striking to push the action at ‘Hendo’ throughout the entire fight, but Henderson rocked his British counterpart with two patented ‘H-Bombs’ in both the first and second rounds that had ‘Dangerous Dan’ dangerously close to finishing the fight.
Badly cut and bleeding, Bisping showed the heart of a true champion by rebounding with a onslaught of precise volume strikes, stinging Henderson on countless occasions but never seriously threatening a knockout. In the end, the hometown judges gave ‘The Count’ a unanimous decision win for his first title defense.
After the bout, Henderson announced his official retirement from MMA competition. Watch the full fight video highlights of his last bout below:
Former undisputed heavyweight champion, Frank Mir claims he failed to crack the $1,000,000 mark in either of his massive fights with fellow former titleholder, Brock Lesnar during his time with the UFC – featuring in blockbuster pay-per-view fights against the latter on two separate occasions. Mir, a former undisputed heavyweight champion under the banner of […]
