Quinton Jackson: Why UFC 123 Is the Most Important Fight of Rampage's Career
Quinton Jackson's bout with Lyoto Machida in UFC 123 tonight might just be the most important fight of Rampage's career.
Machida is obviously no easy opponent, and he will be trying to bounce back from the first loss of his career.
But Rampage clearly has more hanging on this fight. It's been over a year and a half since his last victory, and he's a significant underdog against Machida. Put simply, he definitely has something to prove when he steps into the Octagon tonight.
Here are the Top 10 reasons that UFC 123 is the biggest fight of Rampage's career.
10. He Can't Act
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Let's get this out of the way before we get into the nitty-gritty.
There's a reason we have the saying, "Don't quit your day job," and Rampage's decision to give acting a shot is as good an excuse to use it as you're likely to find.
As much as I enjoyed The A Team, it was painfully obvious while I was watching that Rampage simply can't act. He's a fighter, not a thespian.
That being said, he did sound like something of a jackass when he told the LA Times what he really thought about acting.
9. Needs To Prove He Belongs in the UFC
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Compared to some of his contemporaries, Rampage doesn't have an MMA record that screams overall dominance.
Indeed, his 30 wins are impressive, but his eight career losses exceed those of just a few of his Light Heavyweight contemporaries. And he has just a 5-2 record in UFC action.
In the last two-plus years in particular, Rampage has been wildly mediocre, boasting just a 2-2 record since July of 2008, losing his Light Heavyweight Championship in the process.
In short, he can't afford to lose this fight if he wants to be taken seriously as one of UFC's premier fighters.
8. Needs To Show He's in Shape
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By his own admittance, Rampage was a little out of shape for his last fight with Rashad Evans in UFC 114, which was his first fight since he had gone off to make a name for himself in Hollywood.
He weighed in at 205 pounds for that fight, and has checked in at the exact same weight for UFC 123. But this 205 looks much more cut than the 205 that lost to Rashad Evans, which means some added quickness for Rampage.
Given that Machida is probably even more elusive than Evans, it certainly seems that Rampage has figured out what it takes to beat a karate-style fighter.
And that takes us to our next point.
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7. Needs To Prove He Can Beat an Elusive Fighter
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In terms of pure fighting style, this is going to be one of the bigger issues of the night when the Jackson-Machida fight finally gets under way.
As I hinted at in the last slide, The Dragon is probably even more elusive than Rashad Evans, and his karate style is going to make it tough for Rampage to use his weight and slamming abilities.
If Rampage is forced into playing Machida's game, things are simply not going to end well. The best thing for Rampage to do is probably find ways to get Machida on the ground, where he can use his wrestling abilities, which should be superior to Machida's.
6. Where's the Ground Game?
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While talking with a friend who is a far bigger MMA junkie than me, one of the things that most annoyed him about Jackson these last two years is that he seems to have completely abandoned his ground game.
Indeed, it seems that there really haven't been many instances of Jackson violently taking his opponents to the floor, as he did early in his UFC career.
Because he is a big, barrel-chested guy, slamming people should be his forte. Instead, he's spent way too much time on his feet in recent fights. That didn't fly against Evans, and it's not going to fly against Machida.
5. Needs To Back Up Smack Talk about Karate Style
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Rampage has been pretty forthcoming with his feelings about Machida's fighting style, for the most part saying that it's just plain boring.
“We’re MMA fighters," says Jackson, "you understand. The best athletes in the world. I just hate to see our sport change into boxing where people are not even fighting anymore. I can’t watch a boxing match anymore.”
If Jackson is indeed correct about fighters like Machida slowly watering down the sport, then maybe he has a point. But at the same time, nobody ever made the case that it's his fighting style and his fighting style only that is the "right" one, as it were.
Instead of complaining, maybe he should shut up and make some adjustments.
And that's a nice lead-in to the next slide.
4. Needs To Show He Can Adjust
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If we learned anything from Cain Velasquez's vicious knockout of Brock Lesnar in UFC 121, it's that size and strength can very easily be overcome by speed and quickness.
In fact, you could say the same thing of Pacquiao-Margarito.
But I digress. The point is that fighters like Jackson, who get by with powerful strikes and a drive to knock people out, may be something of a dying breed.
Of course, this theory is completely invalid if Rampage wins tonight. But if he loses...maybe not so much.
3. Legacy
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Rampage is still very much one of the more charismatic figures in MMA. He talks the talk better than anyone, and even MMA laymen are familiar with his name.
That being said, there's also no denying that people don't respect him as a fighter as much as they used to. And you have to suspect that he will lose even more respect than he would have gained if he does indeed lose to Machida.
If he does lose, then it's not just his UFC worth that is going to be called into question. Indeed, we're all going have to take a step back and begin to shape a definitive perspective of the 32-year-old's MMA career as a whole. And it just might not look very pretty if he is indeed defeated.
In other words, Rampage is in danger of becoming a "has-been."
2. Needs To Prove He Can Be a Contender
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Rampage won the Light Heavyweight Championship in just his second UFC bout, back in the summer of 2007.
But since he lost it to Forrest Griffin, and then lost the No. 1 contendership to Rashad Evans, there have been serious doubts throughout the MMA landscape whether Jackson has the tools to be a contender again.
As such, it's not just his legacy that's at stake here, but maybe even his UFC career in general, as well.
1. This Could Be His Last Shot
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Indeed, we can spin the talk of how Rampage's relevancy is at stake against Machida, but the ultimate reason this fight is so important is that Jackson might not get a better shot at becoming a contender once again.
If he wins, then it perhaps won't be long before we're talking about him as a legitimate challenge for Shogun.
If he loses, we're probably not going to have to worry ourselves with talk of Rampage as a Light Heavyweight contender ever again.
So, unless Jackson is only in this thing for fortune and glory, keeping his title hopes alive is the single most indubitable reason that Machida is the most important fight of his life.
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