Rampage talks newfound love for fighting, says he can beat Jon Jones in a rematch
Another day, another set of off-the-wall quotes from Quentin “Rampage” Jackson. Jackson appeared on “The MMA Hour” yesterday to discuss his new-found rejuvenation of his love for fighting, his thoughts on Jon Jones, his recent injury and withdrawal from his Glover Texeira fight, and to do a dance. His thoughts on a new lease on fighting:
“I’m thinking the world hasn’t forgotten about me. I used to be one of the best fighters in the world, and my people out there, they still support me even though I haven’t been doing great. It’s giving me back my love for the fight. I want to make the people who still support me proud, and I want to show my family and myself that I can still be one of the best in the world, and I know I can.” – via MMAFighting.com
Rampage looks to return to form and bounce back strongly, something that was obviously missing when he dropped a lackluster decision to Ryan Bader at UFC 144 in Japan. Rampage came into the bout injured and out of shape, but insisted he could not his Japanese fans down, the ones that jumpstarted his career back in PRIDE. Still, he holds no love lost for Bader:
“I just regret losing to a person like Ryan Bader. He sucks. He sucks. I’ll say it to his face. He sucks. He talked all that trash on how he was going to knock me out. Obviously he knew I was injured because I didn’t make weight. I talked to him man to man and said, ‘Look, lets make it an exciting fight.’ I knew there was a chance I was going to lose, but I don’t want to lose a boring fight in Japan. He made the fight really boring. I got no respect for a guy like that. He sucks.”
Strong words from the always outspoken Jackson, and they didn’t stop there. He disparaged former foe Jon Jones, who also beat Jackson with a fourth-round choke in their title bout last year. Rampage did not apparently like Jones’ tactics against Vitor Belfort at UFC 152. Still, Jackson thinks he can beat Jones if they were to rematch, a fight that probably will not happen anytime soon:
“Vitor took the fight on short notice, and this is how you respect him, by kicking his knee backwards and stuff like that? He’s supposed to be a man of God. You can injure somebody, you can sever their career. You can mess people up for life kicking their knee back like that and he does it repeatedly, over and over. To me that has no honor. I take a lot of honor in fighting. He has no honor. He’s fake. I don’t agree with his fighting style. I think I could beat Jon Jones. I know I can beat him. Jon Jones is the type of of guy you have to fight twice.”
Jackson also agreed to a fight with Matt Mitrione, who called in to trash-talk. Let’s hope his fighting ability matches up to his mouth-running skills sometime soon (highly unlikely). Watch Rampage’s ridiculous dance for Ariel Helwani here:
