Quinton Jackson

Template:MMAstatsbox Quinton Ramone "Rampage" Jackson (June 20 1978) is an American professional mixed martial arts fighter. He rose to prominence with Japan's PRIDE Fighting Championships. He currently competes as a light heavyweight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He has a professional record of 26 wins with 6 losses, and has often been seen with a trademark heavy chain around his neck ringside and before fights. He is known for both his trade mark slams against people in the guard position, and his powerful overhand strikes.

Career

Amateur and early professional career

Jackson had his first taste of combat sport as a wrestler for Raleigh Egypt High School where his successful career was punctuated by All-State honors, as Jackson finished 5th at the Tennessee State tournament at 189 lbs as a High School Senior. Originally, Jackson had intended on pursuing a career in professional wrestling upon finishing high school, but ultimately ended up extending his amateur career in junior college before discovering mixed martial arts. Impressed by the success of other wrestlers in MMA, Jackson decided to try his own hand at the budding sport. Jackson built up a record of 11 wins and 1 loss fighting for a variety of smaller scale American promotions, including King of the Cage, Gladiator Challenge and Dangerzone.

PRIDE Fighting Championships

It was not upon native soil but rather in Japan's PRIDE Fighting Championships that he ultimately rose to fame in the mixed martial arts world. Coming into the Japanese promotion as a hitherto unknown quality fighter against their flagship athlete - Japanese sensation and fellow wrestler - Kazushi Sakuraba at PRIDE 15, Jackson astounded audiences by taking the fight to Sakuraba in what is widely recognized as one of the sports' most exciting contests. Though taken down repeatedly by the smaller Sakuraba's expertly applied low single-leg, Jackson, once on the canvas, refused to be controlled. Using his wrestling ability and raw strength to fight off numerous fluidly applied joint-lock and choke attempts from Sakuraba, Jackson brought the fight back to standing where he mauled Sakuraba with a number of high elevation slams, at one point almost slamming Sakuraba out of the ring. Eventually Jackson became exhausted and succumbed to a rear naked choke from Sakuraba, but his exhilarating performance opened up the eyes of both the PRIDE's fan base and its executive office.

After besting pro-wrestler Alexander Otsuka in a fight for the Battlarts promotion, he was invited back for PRIDE 17, where Jackson scored a KO over Otsuka’s stable mate, Yuki Ishikawa. Jackson was disqualified for an accidental low blow in his next PRIDE appearance against Daijiro Matsui, but with a win in PRIDE 20 over Masaaki Satake he initiated a five-fight winning streak in high profile PRIDE contests which took him all the way to the finals of the 2003 PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix at PRIDE Final Conflict 2003. In the semi finals, he defeated UFC representative Chuck Liddell by TKO due to strikes at 3:10 of the second round before falling to Wanderlei Silva in the final round. He is one of three people to defeat Liddell, after Jeremy Horn and Randy Couture. It was this narrow loss to Wanderlei Silva that entrenched Jackson as a top fighter in the middleweight division.

He went on to defeat Ikuhisa Minowa and Ricardo Arona (becoming only the second fighter to defeat Arona, after Fedor Emelianenko) before suffering a second defeat to Wanderlei Silva in 2004. In this rematch the fighters went at each other as viciously as possible both slamming and repeatedly striking one another from the ground and standing. While Silva emerged the victor this brutal knockdown drag out affair cemented Jackson as an MMA force to reckoned with. Months later he would win a surprise decision over Murilo Rua. After the decision, Jackson acknowledged that the decision had been a bad one, telling Rua and his corner that Rua deserved the win, even going as far as to offer the trophy to Rua as Rua left the ring. The controversial ending to this fight setup a fight between Jackson and Rua's younger (and more talented) brother, Mauricio 'Shogun' Rua at Pride's Total Elimination, the 1st round of the 2005 Middleweight tournament. Jackson lost to the younger Rua in the opening round after taking numerous knee strikes to the head and body, suffering broken ribs early in the fight.

In October 23 2005, Jackson earned a technical knockout victory over Hirotaka Yokoi. Jackson won his next bout at PRIDE 31 in a unanimous decision victory over Judo specialist Dong Sik Yoon; this would be Jackson's last appearance with the company.

After PRIDE

After his last fight with PRIDE, his contract lapsed and he expressed interest in fighting in other organizations. On May 16 2006, the World Fighting Alliance announced it had signed Jackson to a multi-fight deal. He defeated Matt Lindland by split decision at WFA: King of the Streets on July 22, 2006. "He is a good fighter," Rampage said. "I trained hard. He is an Olympic silver medalist. So much respect to him. I knew I had to bring it." The match turned out to be a tough one for the Memphis, Tenn., native who got caught in a choke hold twice. Rampage managed to get out both times and slammed Lindland a few times before cutting the bridge of his nose with a ground and pound on his way to the win.

UFC career

On December 11 2006, Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC, announced it had acquired select assets from the World Fighting Alliance, which will cease operations as a part of their sale agreement. UFC President Dana White has told The Fight Network that Jackson's contract is one of the assets they have acquired. In an interview on the UFC show Inside the UFC Jackson said it was time for him to enter the UFC, and he hadn't before because of his friendship with Tito Ortiz. Jackson said that because Ortiz was the head fighter in the UFC, he didn't want to ruin that. Jackson made his UFC debut at UFC 67, when he beat Marvin Eastman in a rematch. Eastman won Jackson's first fight in 2000 by unanimous decision. This time Jackson defeated Eastman in the 2nd round due to ref stoppage (Knockout). Jackson's next fight will be against Chuck Liddell May 26th at UFC 71, for the Light Heavyweight Championship .

Personal life

Outside of the ring, Quinton Jackson enjoys playing video games and listening to music; Quinton recorded some rap songs before his conversion to Christianity (see below), but he has since expressed interest in redoing the tracks before releasing them, as the original recordings have explicit language that Jackson no longer wishes to be associated with.

Also well known is Quinton's change to born-again Christianity. This apparently occurred sometime after his successful fight with Ricardo Arona (September, 2004). An article written by Sherdog's Josh Gross describes Jackson's experience: "In the middle of a late-summer night Jackson and his kindergarten-age son D’Angelo woke up to separate, though eerily similar dreams. Both were shaken, so much so that at 4 a.m. they had to get out of their apartment. To Jackson, it was a sign. 'You know how girls cry when they’re happy?' he said. 'That’s how I was. I think I felt Jesus' love. I don’t know. I automatically knew everything after I was born again.'"

Jackson resides in Irvine, CA with four children, Diangelo, Raja, and Elijah, and Naname Nakia Jackson. All three boys have the middle name "Rampage" while Naname has just 'Page. He and his wife Yuki were separated in April 2006 after a blood test showed he fathered one of his children, Raja, with another woman.[1]

Jackson also appeared in an episode of MTV's Jackass where he gave tips to Ryan Dunn for an upcoming fight.

External links

• Official Site
• Quinton Jackson, courtesy of Sherdog.com

• PRIDE Profile