Rampage: “Shogun Fight Too Short Of Notice”

Added on Feb 07, 2011 by John Petit in

UFC & MMA

It was 6 hours after UFC 126 when I started to get word that there was someone who turned down the Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, but there was still no word who it was. Early on Sunday, I began to hear murmurs that the fighter in question was none other than Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Then the story exploded.

It wasn’t 3 hours later where we began to hear stories about how Shogun was telling people Rampage was ducking him, and the MMA blogosphere jumped on the story. People were claiming Rampage was soft, that he was scared because of the result of their first meeting, and I even heard tales about how Rampage wanted to focus on movies and was leaving the UFC. Then someone actually called Rampage, and low and behold its none of the above.

Mmajunkie spoke with Jackson via phone, and the answer was really quite simple. Its too short of notice for Rampage. “I don’t care who the opponent is. I’m not taking a fight on four weeks’ notice.” He continued “It’s not enough time to get ready for a five-round fight. Dana knows that. And ‘Shogun,’ he’s a fighter, and he should know that. He shouldn’t even go and say [expletive] like that with him being a fighter. He saw me at the fight this weekend. Everybody saw how big I am.”

Jackson has a lot of experience with short notice fights, as he was once a Pride Champion. Pride was infamous for giving fighters late notice as to when their fights would be taking place, and Rampage knows how dangerous that can be. Simply put, he just can’t be ready in 7 weeks time. He said “I’m just doing maintenance training right now. I just started back. I fought right before the holidays, and I went on vacation to see my family and took my kids to see their family in Japan. I’ve been living my life, so I gained a lot of weight. I’m a natural fighter. I don’t do any drugs, and I don’t know any high-performance drugs, so I have a natural body. My body gains weight when I don’t train and I don’t eat like I’m in camp. I’m 250 pounds, and I would have to lose 45 pounds in, what, three or four weeks?”

Jackson even spoke about the first time he fought Shogun, and how his health played a role in the fight. He said “The first time I fought ‘Shogun,’ I was injured going into that fight, and it’s haunted me all the way up to now. I always believed the second time I fight ‘Shogun’ that I’m going to be close to 100 percent as possible.”

He said there was no way he would take a short notice fight against someone who has already had a win over him. He said “I don’t want to have a rushed camp and have a last-minute fight to fight someone who’s already beaten me. Even if they offered me Forrest (Griffin) or Rashad (Evans) in four weeks, I can’t take that fight because I’m too big.”

Rampage is scheduled to fight Thiago Silva, and the fight is expected to take place at UFC 130.