Tag: UFC on Fox 6

Rampage Faces Reality: “I Don’t Know If I Can Compete with Top People Anymore”

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson may have howled for the last time in the UFC.At UFC on FOX 6, the former light heavyweight champion lost his third consecutive fight to Glover Teixeira in a bout that served as an eye opener to longtime fans.The Rampage of old…

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson may have howled for the last time in the UFC.

At UFC on FOX 6, the former light heavyweight champion lost his third consecutive fight to Glover Teixeira in a bout that served as an eye opener to longtime fans.

The Rampage of old is gone, and he probably isn’t coming back. “I don’t know if I can compete with the top layer of people anymore,” Jackson told Ariel Helwani in a post-fight interview on FUEL TV. “This is my first time losing three fights in a row. I just have a lot of thinking to do.”

Jackson is coming off a string of losses to Teixeira, Jon Jones and Ryan Bader.

A loss to a world champion of Jones’ caliber is certainly nothing to hang your head on, but losses to Bader and Teixeira have forced Jackson to take a step back and reevaluate his career. He isn’t the same guy who took back-to-back wins over world champions Chuck Liddell and Dan Henderson.

To think, Jackson was outdueling and defending takedowns from Henderson in a tightly contested 25-minute battle five years ago. Now, he struggles to even make it out of the first round without taking in huge gulps of air.

Teixeira’s aggressive and bruising style definitely deserves the brunt of the credit.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect in Jackson’s recent performances is his wrestling. As with every aging athlete, his reaction time and explosiveness have decreased dramatically. Most of Teixeira’s takedowns were effortless and telegraphed, but they were more than enough to ground Jackson off every attempt.

It has been nearly two years since Jackson won a fight. The bout against Teixeira was the last on his UFC contract, and early speculation indicates he’ll be looking for employment elsewhere.

Jackson is unsure whether he’ll continue in MMA or try his hand at professional boxing, but he wants to keep competing regardless of his decision. Like longtime heavyweight journeyman Gary Goodridge, he plans on drifting through promotions and taking the most exciting matchups.

He may no longer be a top-tier fighter, but Jackson’s legendary name and exciting fighting style still makes him a valuable commodity in free agency.

I’ll just be one of those fighters that comes in and psyches the crowd like Gary Goodridge, one of the guys that just comes on and puts on a great show…I’ll just go out there and fight and try to entertain the fans. I’ll be one of those middle-ranged fighters, and I’m a free agent, if a show wants to pick me up and somebody just wants to put on exciting fights for the fans, then I’m that guy.

I’m not going to give up though. I’m going to go back to the drawing board and work on everything, but I feel like maybe I can come back if I get my mind to it, but right now, if any show picks me up, that’s like my marketing pitch, “Hey, I’ll come on and put on a great show for you.”

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UFC on Fox: New Flyweight Division Delivers Once Again

It’s time to step into the Octagon once again as we take a look at the UFC’s latest show on America’s Fox network, which was in the early hours of this past Sunday morning on ESPN here in Britain. The broadcast began in the featherwei…

It’s time to step into the Octagon once again as we take a look at the UFC’s latest show on America’s Fox network, which was in the early hours of this past Sunday morning on ESPN here in Britain.

The broadcast began in the featherweight division as Erik Koch went up against Ricardo Lamas.

This one began with both testing the waters with a few kicks. A few moments later, Lamas went for a takedown, and although he was successful, Koch managed to get back up on one leg before they jockeyed for position against the cage.

Round 2 saw them engage in some crisp striking exchanges. But when Lamas slipped, Koch failed to capitalize and soon found himself on his back.

It was then that Lamas went to work, and after an elbow opened up Koch below his eye, Lamas upped his striking rate until the referee stepped in to give Lamas the TKO win.

It was up to lightweight for the next fight as Anthony Pettis took on Donald Cerrone.

Pettis began his shift in the cage with a big right to the jaw, but when he went for a cartwheel kick a few moments later, Cerrone countered with a knee to the body.

The action then settled down for a few seconds before Pettis began to take control with his striking. A kick to the body clearly troubled Cerrone. The Cowboy tried to make out like it was no big deal, but when Pettis connected with a second kick, Cerrone crumpled to the mat. Pettis went in for the kill with the referee stepping in to give him the TKO win.

Light heavyweight action followed as Rampage Jackson faced Glover Teixeira.

This proved to be a very intriguing three-round affair. Right from the start, Teixeira put on a great display of striking, a display that had Rampage in no end of trouble at times.

It was Teixeira’s left hand in particular that gave Rampage no end of trouble, and although he controlled the majority of the exchanges, Rampage got in a few good shots as well. Hell also froze over when the former champion added a few kicks into the mix.

This fight wasn’t just about the striking, though. Teixeira had a great deal of success on the ground with a number of takedowns throughout the fight, although Rampage managed to get back to his feet quite a few times as well.

But as the fight went on, Rampage began to look exhausted, while Teixeira looked as fresh as a daisy throughout, and when the fight ended it seemed pretty obvious who was going to get the decision.

The judges saw it that way as well, as Teixeira took the unanimous decision.

The main event saw John Dodson challenging Demetrious Johnson for the flyweight title.

I really enjoyed this one. For five rounds, these two put on a fight that would have been worthy of a pay-per-view main event, let alone free-to-air television.

Dodson put in some great work early on. His striking looked crisp, as he gave Johnson quite a bit of trouble, especially in the first two rounds, when he knocked the champion to the ground.

Johnson managed to weather that particular storm and came back time and time again, scoring with some nice takedowns along the way.

The champion was guilty of a couple of rules infractions later on, connecting with an inadvertent knee to the groin in the third and a knee to the head in the fourth while Dodson had a hand on the mat. The challenger was given a couple of rest periods, although ultimately it didn’t do him much good.

This was mainly because Johnson began to dominate the action from the fourth round onward, connecting with a series of knees to the head from various clinches. Dodson just didn’t seem to have any form of defence against these, and these blows, added to his growing fatigue, meant that he was becoming a shell of the fighter who rocked the champion earlier on.

With the fight going the distance, the judges were called upon again as they gave Johnson their unanimous title-retaining decision.

In conclusion—if I had stayed up until the early hours to watch this, I would probably have said that this was well worth staying up for.

The four fights shown here certainly delivered. The two TKO wins were worth the price of admission alone, while Glover Teixeira’s points win over Rampage Jackson kind of seemed like another passing of the baton, the changing of the guard if you will, as the new generation of light heavyweight fighters continues to make its mark.

As for the main event, the UFC’s newest division did it again. Although we didn’t see that marquee finish, Demetrious Johnson and John Dodson delivered the goods, and Johnson’s performance once again showed why the flyweights are now a valuable part of the UFC. This is the reason that these guys are going to get my vote for Fight of the Night.

With all of that out of the way, it’s time to wrap this thing up by giving UFC on Fox the thumbs up.

Don’t forget to check out my website at twoshedsreview.blogspot.com. It’s been online in one form or another for nearly 13 years now!

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UFC on Fox 6 Leaves Fighters Bloody, but Not Battered

In what would turn out to be an especially bloody night for some fighters, it marked another great night of fights in the UFC. Ironically, it was actually one of the prelims that had many fans cringing.In the lightweight showdown between Matt Wiman and…

In what would turn out to be an especially bloody night for some fighters, it marked another great night of fights in the UFC. Ironically, it was actually one of the prelims that had many fans cringing.

In the lightweight showdown between Matt Wiman and T.J. Grant, we saw Grant finish Wiman in an impressive, albeit bloody fashion. There was one combo, especially, that had Wiman hurt, and that had Grant looking to finish up the fight early. 

While Wiman had escaped the grips of defeat, he was cut open in the process. This prompted Grant to follow up with several elbows to the face of Wiman. After a flurry of devastating elbows, Wiman was knocked down, and Grant pounced on his bloody adversary.

After Wiman couldn’t defend against Grant’s ground-and-pound anymore, the referee stopped the match. While Wiman was a bloody mess, he wasn’t showing many, if any signs of being concussed. 

One of the main concerns in sports today is the safety of the athletes. One week ago, we saw Ravens safety Bernard Pollard lay a bone-crushing, helmet-to-helmet hit on Patriots running back Stevan Ridley.

Now, the NFL is largely considered to be one of the safer contact sports in the world, especially when compared to MMA, but is it really? Sure, we have seen many calamitous injuries in MMA, but we have also seen many of the same type of injuries in the NFL. 

So why is it that MMA catches a bad rep for being dangerous, and even barbaric? It is no secret that the NFL is trying to make the game safer for players, but is it really a safer sport? While MMA may seem more gruesome because of the gore and blood that goes along with being a fighter, it seems as though the NFL has many more career-ending injuries—and more often. 

Yes, it is certainly not rare to see some guys walk away from a fight concussed, but recently, it seems as if it’s the NFL’s players who have been having more concussions. I believe that the chance to get seriously hurt in either of these sports is a lot more equal than people may think. 

Take the fight between Erik Koch and Ricardo Lamas for example. Lamas brutalized Koch in what would turn out to be the bloodiest fight UFC fans have seen in awhile. After a subtle exchange between the fighters in the opening minutes, Lamas picked up the pace and landed some huge shots on Koch before eventually taking the fight to the ground. 

Once on the ground, Lamas took top position and started raining down shot after shot, elbow after elbow. After a thunderous barrage of strikes, the referee stopped the fight, but it wasn’t before Koch had been busted wide open. While Koch was bloodied and hurt at the time, there has since been no reports that he had suffered a concussion or any serious head damage. 

Perhaps, the reason why fighters don’t sustain as many head injuries as people would think is because of the team of doctors helping out each fighter before and after their fights. In the NFL, each club has a team doctor, but players have sometimes hid the fact that they are concussed in order to stay on the field or may not even realize they have suffered a concussion. 

Troy Polamalu is one NFL player who has personally come out and said that he has lied to team doctors in order to stay in the game (via an interview with the Dan Patrick Show, h/t Vinnie Iyer of Sporting News). While it may not be the smartest idea in the world, it is a great display of heart, but at what cost? Polamalu said he had sustained “eight or nine” concussions in his career with the Steelers. 

These guys know that it is their jobs to go out on the field and play, but surely, it is not worth risking their health in the long run. The NFLPA has come out and said that they want concussion experts. Sometimes, a player may not even realize he has suffered a concussion, and if he goes out again and takes another shot to the head, he could be in some serious danger. 

By bringing in concussion specialists, this would eliminate any doubt and would also bolster a more health-conscious sport. No one wants to see a guy’s career end early due to injury. It’s interesting that the sport many people consider to be the most dangerous is actually one of the most health-conscious franchises in the world. 

Maybe the NFL could learn something from MMA.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Rampage Jackson: Breaking Down His Final UFC Performance

He wanted it. He got it. Rampage Jackson is no longer with the UFC, and he went out fighting a guy who was willing to stand in front of him and trade punches in Glover Teixeria. After complaining about not being able to find enough of those opponents f…

He wanted it. He got it.

Rampage Jackson is no longer with the UFC, and he went out fighting a guy who was willing to stand in front of him and trade punches in Glover Teixeria.

After complaining about not being able to find enough of those opponents for years, he couldn’t beat one when he finally got him. Teixeira beat him convincingly at him own game, to the point that it was Jackson looking for takedowns just as often as his opponent.

The performance itself was interesting, a fight prefaced by months of complaining about the UFC as a promotion and one painful week of pre-fight salesmanship that centered around the same idea.

In the cage Jackson looked better than he had since a 2011 fight with Jon Jones, but still not good.

Lethargy seemed to place him firmly in concrete shoes for most of the fight, and while his slick slipping and rolling was still there during exchanges, he lacked the mobility to bring the fight to his man. Teixeira, only 488 days younger than Jackson, looked like a fighter 10 years his junior.

You stand in front of enough professional punching machines, and they start to hit you. The more they hit you, the older you get.

It’s a sure sign of the inevitable for a man with more MMA fights to his name than he has years on this planet: Quinton Jackson is old.

On top of that, Quinton Jackson is tired. He’s tired of MMA, tired of the promotion game and tired of the countless perceived slights by which he’s been victimized.

And that showed on FOX.

This isn’t to say that he didn’t come and put on an okay show. He fought Teixeira hard, hung in there when he could have bailed and went out on his own terms. Yes, he suffered his third straight loss and fourth in six fights, but he hasn’t been knocked out since 2005 and has rarely been outclassed by anything in the cage that wasn’t his own lack of motivation.

For someone so mercurial and curious, his final UFC fight was the perfect embodiment of his run in the promotion overall: spurts of excellence, plenty of problems and an outcome that left a lot of people wanting more.

Frankly, there was no more fitting way for it to end.

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UFC on FOX 6: 5 Fights for Ricardo Lamas to Take Next

Fighting in front of his hometown crowd Saturday night in Chicago, Ricardo Lamas made a convincing and violent statement in the UFC’s 145-pound class, demolishing Erik Koch, who had only previously been beaten once in his MMA career. Lamas looked like …

Fighting in front of his hometown crowd Saturday night in Chicago, Ricardo Lamas made a convincing and violent statement in the UFC’s 145-pound class, demolishing Erik Koch, who had only previously been beaten once in his MMA career. Lamas looked like an absolute man possessed.

With that in mind, here are some options for his next time out.

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UFC on Fox 6 Superlatives: Best and Worst from the Entire Fight Card

UFC on Fox 6 was a pivotal event for several different divisions.Demetrious Johnson maintained his position atop the flyweight class with a hard-fought decision win over John Dodson in the main event.With their impressive knockout victories over Donald…

UFC on Fox 6 was a pivotal event for several different divisions.

Demetrious Johnson maintained his position atop the flyweight class with a hard-fought decision win over John Dodson in the main event.

With their impressive knockout victories over Donald Cerrone and Erik Koch, respectively, lightweight Anthony Pettis and featherweight Ricardo Lamas emerged as top contenders in their divisions.

Additionally, Glover Teixeira proved himself a light heavyweight contender with a win over former champion Quinton Jackson.

There is a lot to be excited about as an MMA fan coming out of UFC on Fox 6. Let’s take a look at some reasons why with the best and worst from the entire fight card.

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