One Final Rampage

At UFC 135 this Saturday, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson gets what will likely be his last shot at reclaiming the UFC Light Heavyweight Title when he faces the future of the division in Jon Jones. Coming into this as a heavy underdog, Rampage is going to have to pull off the performance of a lifetime to win. It would have to be a performance no one can really be sure he is capable of.

Since his beginnings in PRIDE, Rampage has always been near the top of the 205 lb. division. He entered the sport with solid wrestling and vicious slams and evolved his striking until he became one of the best strikers in all of MMA. If you watch him strike, his footwork and head movement are excellent by MMA standards and he can throw his hooks and uppercuts with great power and force. While Rampage has always had the tools to be a great fighter, he doesn’t always manage to put them together consistently. Two things have held Rampage back throughout his career: a lack of focus and an increasingly unevolved gameplan in his fights.

Rampage can be a bit of a goofball, to the point of inhibiting his effectiveness as a fighter. You can go on youtube and see an enormous amounts of clips of him doing stuff like humping a reporter’s leg, motorboating in a reporter’s cleavage, or just go off on random obscenity laced jokes about his opponents. It seems like some of this takes away from his training and preparation for fights. Look at the Rashad Evans fight - if Rampage hadn’t ballooned to 250+ pounds before that fight and had taken it more seriously, he wouldn’t have gassed out early and could have finished the fight in the third round. His loss to Forrest Griffin is another example. He took Forrest lightly and showed up for the fight out of shape. He ended up losing a decision, even though he landed the more powerful blows, because Forrest outworked him. In PRIDE, he went through a slump where he won an unimpressive decision over Ninja Rua and then followed it up by being on the receiving end of a mauling from Shogun Rua. When Rampage focuses, he does much better.

Both of his wins over Chuck Liddell show this. When they faced off in the 2003 PRIDE Grand Prix, Rampage pounded the Iceman with relentless takedowns and ground and pound, as well as boxing. He ended up winning the fight by TKO when Liddell’s corner threw in the towel to prevent any more damage. Their rematch in the UFC also showed what happens when he takes a fight seriously. He locked into Liddell’s timing and blasted him with a hook that began the end of Chuck’s career. His UFC 92 rematch with Wanderlei Silva was a fight where Rampage had something to prove. He was able to make up for the two prior brutal losses to Silva by crushing him with a hook in the first round that absolutely pasted the Axe Murderer.

While those two knockout wins showcase his striking prowess, too often Rampage has been content to go into fights looking merely to box. In the Griffin fight he was standing still, looking to land knockout blows and ended up paying the price by eating a ton of leg kicks and ended up on his back a few times. In the Evans fight, he was looking to brawl and ended up pinned against the cage for the bulk of the night. Even in wins against Jardine and Hamill, he was far too content to shrug off takedown attempts and stand and box. Even while boxing he isn’t very active; he just looks to throw and not really push any pace. As he has gotten older and slower, he has become far too easy to plan for and against. Leg kicks and a fast pace, as well as some clinch work and keeping your hands up to block the hands are really all that is needed to win against Rampage on most nights.

When Rampage is active, moves around, and mixes it up he fairs much better. His win over Dan Henderson was a classic example. He wasn’t going to be able to KO Hendo (its just never been done), so he was forced to mix it up. He was able to reverse off his back, shoot for and land takedowns, and fight in the clinch. It was one of the more well rounded showings in his entire career, and definitely his most all around effort in the UFC. His November win against Machida, while questionable, still showed a better Rampage than the one that lost to Evans. He moved more, played the aggressor, and didn’t just stand around. He also went for takedowns and even put in an attempt at a slam. If that Rampage shows up every time, he easily wins the bulk of his fights. He’s just too strong and talented to lose lackluster decisions that come from him being plodding.

PRIDE-era Rampage was never called out for being one dimensional or inactive. Over there, he was using a wide range of throws and merciless ground and pound to overwhelm people. If he was trapped in a bad situation, he was willing to just use brute force to escape. Evidence of that can be seen when he slammed Ricardo Arona with the force of a car crash. To succeed against Jon Jones, he is going to have to tap into his arsenal and take advantage of both his experience and raw strength.

By all accounts, Rampage is taking this fight very seriously, much more so than he has since the Silva fight. If that is the case, Jones could be in trouble. He’s young, extremely gifted, but brash. Rampage is easily the toughest challenge of his young career. Even an unmotivated Jackson is extremely difficult to finish; in fact, both of his losses in the UFC were by decision and he hasn’t been finished since that aforementioned drubbing from Shogun Rua in 2005. His boxing is more powerful and technically sound than Jones’ and when combined with some intensity from Jackson, that could make for a long night. However, Jones runs out of a better, more varied camp (Greg Jackson’s as opposed to the one-dimensional Wolfslair) and has constantly improved with every fight while Rampage has seemed to stagnate over the past few years. Either way, this Saturday will show whether Jones really is deserving of the fawning he has received from MMA fans the past few years by beating one of the toughest men in the sport or if Rampage has enough left in him to do what legends like Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz have never done: reclaim the UFC Light Heavyweight Title.