Yeah. No.
Former Pride FC standout and former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson sits somewhere between memorable and legendary. He’s the fighter who knocked out Chuck Liddell to end his championship reign but he’s also the champion who lost his belt to Forrest Griffin. See? Somewhere in the middle.
Jackson’s wildman persona along with his powerhouse style got him over with fans. The trash talk, the heavy chain with a padlock on it, and the wild howl before he stepped in to the ring, or cage created a comic book character come to life. He was one of the few Pride fighters to transition to the UFC and keep his star power.
Jackson’s UFC run ended after a three fight skid in 2013. He would jump to Bellator and win 5 in a row before dropping back to back fights via decisions to Muhammad Lawal and Chael Sonnen. He would bounce back by defeating rival Wanderlei Silva once again by KO to cap off their trilogy that started in Pride before carrying over to the UFC and as stated before, finished in Bellator.
His last fight was a quick and somewhat embarrassing destruction by Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko. Rampage was visibly out of shape and overweight heading in to that one and has not fought since. That bout happened in December of 2019 and it appears the 43 year old may have one more fight in him possibly with former WBO boxing champ Shannon Briggs. Maybe.
Jackson appeared in a mainstream Hollywood movie with Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, and Sharlto Copley. The A-Team made $177M worldwide and it appeared at the time he might make a real go at it in tinsel town. Unfortunately, while still acting today, he would never reach those heights again. Quinton is still a tad salty about that and seems to blame the UFC for it – in a roundabout way. He feels so strongly about this that he told Ariel Helwani he would not accept an invitation the the UFC’s Hall of Fame.
Here’s some of what he said:
I don’t know if I say this, I’ll get sued by the UFC, but all I can say is, after I did the A-Team, some organizations made it really hard for me to do other movies. That’s all I can put out there. I can say I signed with one of the biggest agencies in Hollywood, and they didn’t do sh*t for me, and I felt like it was on purpose. Actually, I know it was on purpose because now they own UFC.
I don’t fight for no Hall of Fame. What do you get for being in the Hall of Fame?
What do you think of his comments?