In a recent article for Rolling Stone, Jones is credited with being not only the best fighter of today, but will end up being the best of all-time.”The September victory cemented Jones’ status as the most brutal practitioner of precision fury…
In a recent article for Rolling Stone, Jones is credited with being not only the best fighter of today, but will end up being the best of all-time.
“The September victory cemented Jones’ status as the most brutal practitioner of precision fury in the UFC. In fact, Jones may be the best fighter the world of mixed martial arts has ever seen.”
The article credits Urijah Faber with saying that he could become “the Michael Jordan of MMA.” When told of Faber’s high praise, Jones was taken aback.
“I don’t really know what to say to that…I don’t want to sound cocky, but I do hold myself in high regard.”
Jon Jones has reason to think highly of himself. He’s risen from the ranks of prospect to UFC champion in less than a year. He is the UFC’s youngest champion and just bought a customized Bentley to get him from point A to point B.
Oh, and he’s only 23 years old.
Jones has accomplished a lot which has led many to proclaim Jones as the best in MMA today.
Even Dana White charmed in by saying he believes Jones could be “one of the best ever.”
Jones’ career is still in its infancy, but he certainly has made an impact that few will forget. He’s dominated two former champions and has virtually ran through his competition up to this point.
Jones will look to continue to cement his legacy when he takes on Lyoto Machida at UFC 140.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen Ryron and Rener Gracie break down the action from a UFC card, so we decided to give you guys a double dose of knowledge to kick-start your weekend. Above, we have their take on Chael Sonnen’s ever improving Jiu-Jitsu game, which capped off with a second round arm triangle submission of Brian Stann at UFC 136.
Now, moving past how “gentle” Chael was in his victory, the Gracie’s demonstrate and analyze the transitions, guard passes, and remount techniques Sonnen used to defeat Stann with their usual competency, breaking down both the first and second rounds of their middleweight fight. Being a guy trained primarily in the ground game, I can’t say enough how valuable these break downs are.
Check out the Gracie’s breakdown of Jon Jones’ 4th round rear-naked choke over Quinton “Rampage” Jackson at UFC 135 after the jump.
-Danga
It’s been a while since we’ve seen Ryron and Rener Gracie break down the action from a UFC card, so we decided to give you guys a double dose of knowledge to kick-start your weekend. Above, we have their take on Chael Sonnen’s ever improving Jiu-Jitsu game, which capped off with a second round arm triangle submission of Brian Stann at UFC 136.
Now, moving past how “gentle” Chael was in his victory, the Gracie’s demonstrate and analyze the transitions, guard passes, and remount techniques Sonnen used to defeat Stann with their usual competency, breaking down both the first and second rounds of their middleweight fight. Being a guy trained primarily in the ground game, I can’t say enough how valuable these break downs are.
You can say what you want about Dana White when it comes to title fights, but the man never beats around the bush when it comes to his fighters. In a recent interview, “The Baldfather” spoke in typically frank fashion when asked about former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s claims to pursue boxing at the end of his UFC contract on the heels of his fourth round submission loss to current champ Jon Jones at UFC 135. A few highlights from the interview:
On boxing promoter Bob Arum’s claims that the UFC underpays their fighters: “You hear [boxing promoter] Bob [Arum] out there: ‘Yeah, they don’t pay their guys anything.’ Rampage got paid for his last fight, trust me. A lot of money. Bob Arum pays guys $600 on his cards. We’ve never paid a guy that, ever. We’ve only been around ten years, Bob’s been promoting fights for 120 years”
You can say what you want about Dana White when it comes to title fights, but the man never beats around the bush when it comes to his fighters. In a recent interview, “The Baldfather” spoke in typically frank fashion when asked about former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s claims to pursue boxing at the end of his UFC contract on the heels of his fourth round submission loss to current champ Jon Jones at UFC 135. A few highlights from the interview:
On boxing promoter Bob Arum’s claims that the UFC underpays their fighters: “You hear [boxing promoter] Bob [Arum] out there: ‘Yeah, they don’t pay their guys anything.’ Rampage got paid for his last fight, trust me. A lot of money. Bob Arum pays guys $600 on his cards. We’ve never paid a guy that, ever. We’ve only been around ten years, Bob’s been promoting fights for 120 years”
On Rampage’s belief that people won’t run from him in the boxing ring: “He’ll find out when he starts boxing that [running from opponents is] pretty much the game these days. The game is: Let’s step in there and do everything we can do avoid a fight, so we can get on to the next payday. No matter where you are, no matter what you do, you’re always going to have guys chirping about something.”
On Rampage’s thought process in general: “Rampage thought the movie business was the answer to all his fucking dreams and that didn’t work out too good. The pay over there wasn’t what he thought it was, the pay over here was a lot better. A lot better. The grass is always greener until it’s not there any more, and then you realize you made a lot of mistakes and you should have done things differently.”
DW makes some interesting points here, and given Rampage’s history of mental…let’s say shakiness following title fights, it’s hard to judge whether he is truly serious about moving to boxing or just blowing smoke up our ass. What do you guys think? Is Jackson really serious about this move, or is it just a case of his infamous post-loss blues?
Lyoto Machida finally has an opponent lined up and it will be none other than UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. UFC president Dana White broke the news today on Twitter, announcing the fight as the main event of UFC 140. Jones recently defended…
Lyoto Machida finally has an opponent lined up and it will be none other than UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
UFC president Dana White broke the news today on Twitter, announcing the fight as the main event of UFC 140.
Jones recently defended his title for the first time against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson at UFC 135.
The last time we saw Machida he was retiring Randy Couture with an amazing jumping front kick that KO’d the UFC legend.
Machida will be Jones’ toughest test to date. His style of elusive karate is one of the hardest for fighters to figure out.
Despite this, Jones will find a way to beat Machida. Here are the reasons why.
Well, The Bum Rush Radio Show is finally back in your lives after a brief hiatus. Whether or not that’s a good thing remains to be seen. Our relationship with you is like Sid’s was with Nancy; you can’t live without us, but sometimes we drive you insane and we’re cool with that. We’ll hide the knives and the heroin and we’ll continue to get along just fine.
Anyway, our special guest this week is acclaimed Xtreme Couture head boxing coach Gil Martinez who is in the final stages of preparations for Gray Maynard’s championship rematch with Frankie Edgar. We talk to Gil about his thoughts on the bout and we find out what he thought about the Ortiz-Mayweather debacle.
Also on the show, we formally meet our new part-time staff member Jared “DangadaDang” Jones as he, Ben and Mike discuss the top news of the week, last week’s UFC 135 event, and the last UFC on Versus card coming up tomorrow.
Well, The Bum Rush Radio Show is finally back in your lives after a brief hiatus. Whether or not that’s a good thing remains to be seen. Our relationship with you is like Sid’s was with Nancy; you can’t live without us, but sometimes we drive you insane and we’re cool with that. We’ll hide the knives and the heroin and we’ll continue to get along just fine.
Anyway, our special guest this week is acclaimed Xtreme Couture head boxing coach Gil Martinez who is in the final stages of preparations for Gray Maynard’s championship rematch with Frankie Edgar. We talk to Gil about his thoughts on the bout and we find out what he thought about the Ortiz-Mayweather debacle.
Also on the show, we formally meet our new part-time staff member Jared “DangadaDang” Jones as he, Ben and Mike discuss the top news of the week, last week’s UFC 135 event, and the last UFC on Versus card coming up tomorrow.
As always, you can subscribe to the show via iTunes, or download it directly by right clicking and saving the mp3 of the show HERE.
Filed under: UFCQuinton “Rampage” Jackson is, yet again, fed up with MMA. I guess that means it’s time to rotate the tires on my Toyota and change the air filter in my furnace. Who needs a calendar or a planner for that stuff when you’ve got Jackson, w…
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is, yet again, fed up with MMA. I guess that means it’s time to rotate the tires on my Toyota and change the air filter in my furnace. Who needs a calendar or a planner for that stuff when you’ve got Jackson, whose frustration with this sport is the most reliable natural phenomenon outside of Yellowstone National Park?
This time, Jackson told an ESPN UK podcast that, after his loss to Jon Jones at UFC 135, he’s tired of “fighting people who are scared.”
“That’s why I’m going to go to boxing,” said Jackson. “I’m going to try boxing because they’ve got to stand with you. If I get knocked out I don’t care, because at least it’s a fight.”
Right. Because that was his big problem with Jones. The champ was “scared” to stand up and fight him. That must be how Jackson ended up getting kicked around the cage like a hacky sack at an Ani DiFranco concert.
Not that any of us should be surprised to hear Jackson threatening to take his talents elsewhere. As recently as May he proclaimed that “as soon as movies start paying me more than I make to fight, I’m gone.”
A year and a half before that, when the UFC gave him a hard time for taking the A-Team role rather than fighting Rashad Evans right away, he declared he was “done fighting” and “hanging it up.”
His movie career must not be panning out like he’d hoped, because now boxing is his new frontier. Six months from now he may decide wants to be a male model instead, or maybe an astronaut. In other words, anything but MMA, the one thing he’s made a reliable living at for the last decade or so.
It’s not that I don’t understand the motivation behind comments like these. We’ve all romanticized the notion of a different career in our minds. No matter how good you have it in your current job, other people seem to have it better. Especially when you’ve never actually tried that line of work, the way Jackson has never tried to be a full-time professional boxer. Then it exists solely as an idea, wholly perfect and unmolested by reality.
How else could Jackson have convinced himself that boxing is a sport where he won’t have to worry about supposedly scared fighters running from him? Has he not heard that boxing has its share of “elusive” fighters? That even if opponents aren’t shooting for takedowns or tenderizing his legs and ribs with kicks, there are still plenty of ways for them to avoid slugging exchanges in the ring?
If he thinks boxing is a sport where men stand directly in front of each other and trade haymakers, he’s about a hundred years late to the party. These days, boxing has its share of runners. It also has its share of skyscraper heavyweights who could jab him from across the street and give him the same distance problems that Jones did. That is, unless he thinks he can drop down to cruiserweight (quick: name your favorite cruiserweight, and no, Chris Jericho doesn’t count), where there’ll be less money on the table than he seems to think.
I don’t blame Jackson for feeling like he wants to do something else after the loss to Jones. That fight was so thoroughly one-sided that he has to know he’ll never get his belt back as long as Jones is breathing air in the light heavyweight division. That leaves him with limited options. He could rematch “Shogun” Rua or Forrest Griffin, both of which he seems open to. But what then?
And of course, there’s always the need to find some excuse for a loss, a pastime that even Jackson will admit he’s an old pro at. Jones dominated every second of the fight? So what. It’s only because he was running scared. Things will be different in the faraway land of boxing, where the streets are paved with gold and there’s not a college wrestling All-American in sight.
Sure, it doesn’t really make sense, but it doesn’t have to. A few months from now the UFC will have given Jackson another fight, another guaranteed payday, and he’ll have forgotten all about it. He’ll be back to doing the one thing he knows and kind of hates, and all be well again.
At least until the next time. And you know there will be a next time.
