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Rampage Jackson: Jon Jones Is The Dirtiest Fighter, Iconic Slams, That TUF Door, What Happened In TNA Wrestling
Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (@rampage4real) is a mixed martial artist and actor known for his time in Pride FC, Bellator and as the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. He joins Chris Van Vliet in the Blue Wire Studios at Wynn Las Vegas to talk about his legendary UFC career, his fights with opponents like Wanderlei Silva, Chuck Liddell, Mauricio "Shogun" Rua, why he says Jon Jones is the dirtiest fighter, what happened when he signed with TNA to become a pro wrestler, his movie roles and what he learned from Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper on "The A-Team", his viral clip destroying the door on "The Ultimate Fighter", why he thinks Jake Paul will beat Tommy Fury, his support of United Fight League and the fact that they are paying for fighters medical coverage, his plans for another fight and much more!
Check out the United Fight League here: https://unitedfightleague.com/
“Jon Jones is like the dirtiest fighter. I'm cool with Jon, when I see Jon Jones we cool. Its a side of me that wants to do stuff to Jon Jones. I'm gonna keep it real. I never got a rematch. I never got it. Yeah, it's a side of me that you know, every time like I used to, I used to have a Lambo and I used to get in and out of it. I used to get it in the Lambo and be in a lot of pain. But then it's like. I always had honor when I fought. You know, I want to be the best fighter on the day, I want to win the fight clean. But I know that every fighter is not like me, so I can't get mad at him, you know what I’m saying, I can't get mad at him for that. But it's just me. But you know, now my son is fighting. If like somebody did this sh*t to my son. I don't know what happened because I can't control my temper sometimes. I don't know if I would jump in the cage and go ahead. You know, somebody kicked my son, I don't know. But me. I don't love myself as much. I love my son. So it's just different.”
“No, I never officially retired. I do want to fight like maybe like two or three more fights and I want to do at least one boxing match before I get too old. [There is a lot of money in boxing] It is a lot of money. But I just want to do a boxing match, I always have.”
“I remember I had to start cutting 30 pounds while I was in Bellator, already cut 30 pounds. So because some dumb ass specialist misdiagnosed me with hypothyroid. And they put me on medicine. It made me gain weight, I was supposed to lose weight, but I was gaining weight. So I didn't figure it out, you know.”
“Well I didn't figure it out until a month before my last fight. I was training with Coach Cowell, I don't know if you know him, he trains a lot of trainers, a lot of guys, he trains a lot of good athletes and stuff, and he's a scientist. And he said, I mean, I tell him about my problem, [he said] let me look at your blood. And he looked at my blood and those specialists, I don't think they did this. And he looked at and he said there's nothing wrong with your thyroid. He says your T3, something's wrong with T three, and he said that medicine that you on is making you gain weight. And that's why I quit cold turkey, he was like, no, no, no, no, you shouldn't quit cold turkey. But I was like man, I gotta cut weight to make it, I gotta lose weight. So I quit cold turkey and it just backfired. So I'm still trying to get everything right. But I think that my body style, I think that maybe I'm gonna have to cut out a whole bunch of stuff like carbs, sugars.”
“Oh, it was always supposed to be pro wrestling. You know, I used to be a really big pro-wrestling fan from Memphis, and my oldest brother was a big pro wrestling fan, so it was like I grew up watching him watch it. And we always go to like, not Monday Night Raw, something else, it was called Monday, it was Monday night fights. And they used to have it free on Sundays. Where they give you free tickets. You go to the studio. I've been there a couple of times.”
“Well, this is kind of a long story. I bumped into my favourite pro wrestler, the master of pain, Undertaker, and this is when I started wrestling. I started wrestling, and I went to state so I'm in Chattanooga, and I'm in a hotel and I see The Undertaker and I asked for a picture, I mean for autograph. He said no. Then I saw him sign a little white kids autograph and I was like, oh. But then years later, I think about when I was 17 years old [at the time], he didn't see me as a kid, I was still a kid. But he probably [saw me] at 17 years old. I thought I was you know, I thought I was a kid.”
“It was big news. I was so disappointed that they didn’t use me like I thought they were gonna use me. [Chris mentions the debut going nose to nose with Kurt Angle] Dude, that broke the internet for me]. I don't want to talk bad about TNA, but if I'm gonna keep it 100 Like I always try to do I just think they stupid.”
“They were supposed to train me, they sent the ring to me at my gym, I had my own gym at the time. But they never sent anybody over to train me and they never like, you know, put the time in to train me. I was serious about it. Who knows? I probably would have left MMA and been like Ronda Rousey or somebody now.”
“I remember watching UFC, back in college, one of my college, one of my high school wrestling coaches was doing this fight in UFC. He retired probably, he retired before the UFC got mainstream, but he's a UFC veteran, one of the pioneers. So he was trading for the UFC, that's when I learned about it.”
“And so I got injured in college and I went home and healed up. And one of my old teammates that I used to wrestle against in high school, man, his coach was really good friends. So me and him, we knew each other, we was friends, became real good friends. And he wanted me to have him trained for a fight. I was nervous. He took me to the gym, he took me, he took me to a fight, and I saw this guy like, as the champion of Memphis. He put a guy in that armbar triangle choke and he tapped the guy, which was flipped on his face and kicked him off. And I was like man, I like to fight that guy. And I ended up fighting him like a couple of weeks later. You know, I go back to the gym, stuff like that. And he was like hey, you still want to fight? Yeah, I’ll fight like, you know, when? It was like, oh, three days? Yeah, I was like, cool. He’s like, that guy you saw you want to fight? Here's your chance. I'm like, damn, I spoke too soon. So I couldn't back out right? So I followed him. Three days notice and I end up winning by decision.”
“He’s going to beat the sh*t out of Tommy Fury. And nothing against Tommy Fury. I got nothing against them. You know, I look up to his brother and everything. But I I thought Tommy Fury, I was rooting for him to beat Jake Paul as well. I just want to see him fight a real boxer and get beat, I'm sorry. Because just so you know, I'm a fan of his. I like it, but he beat too many MMA fighters right? So I'm, I'm like, now he's, he's going to sh*t the bed again. And then I looked at Fury and I’m like oh my God, that guy sucks.”
“It was pretty cool. So I took direction from everybody. Anybody has something to say? I didn't have ego and I just laugh, you know, some stuff because they knew that wasn't like a seasoned actor. And they understood it. Everybody was no good. But I'm still close friends, all these guys. That's great. Everybody. Still, all those guys are great. They're all super cool.”
