Kempo Chris
03-15-2003, 10:41 PM
Quinton Jackson's Hard Road to Glory : :
By Thomas Gerbasi (March 12, 2003)
As Quinton Jackson prepares for his Pride 25 fight with Kevin Randleman Sunday, there are no elaborate press conferences, no need to turn away pesky interviewers or television cameras.
Despite being one half of one of the best mixed martial arts fights in the last couple of years, Jackson trains in obscurity in California, forced to travel to Japan to make any substantial money in the fight game.
But like a lot of things in life that he has no control over, Jackson accepts not being able to perform for his home fans.
"It don't bother me one bit because I fight in Japan," Jackson told MaxFighting. "That's where I go to make my money."
If he can beat Randleman, the former UFC heavyweight champion, there's going to be a shot at some bigger paydays and more importantly, a chance at unseating Vanderlei Silva as Pride middleweight champ.
Jackson looks at Sunday's bout as his title shot.
"I think he's a tougher than Vanderlei," said Jackson of Randleman. "If I get past him, I'll hopefully take out Vanderlei and be the champion of Pride for a few years. The way I see it, Vanderlei Silva's just holding my belt for me."
Against Randleman, Jackson will be facing an athletically gifted world-class wrestler. In Jackson, Randleman will be facing an athletically gifted fighter with a wrestling base. The subtle differences between the two will determine the winner. And despite the fact that neither fighter is a stranger to pre-fight trash talk, the mutual respect between the two leading up to this intriguing clash has been a pleasant twist.
"I respect him a whole lot," said Jackson. "He's an excellent wrestler and I look up to all the good wrestlers."
With a wrestling base, Jackson is one of the best ground and pounders in the game - no doubt a product of his time spent with Colin Oyama, Tito Ortiz, and Team Punishment. But 'Rampage' is also showing his worth as a kickboxer, scoring two stunning KOs of highly regarded Cyril Abidi in K-1 competition. It's getting to the point where Jackson's skills are progressing so fast that in a year's time no 205-pounder will have a chance in the ring with him.
Not bad for a guy who didn't even start competing in organized sports until he was 17.
"I didn't start wrestling until I was 17 and I did all right, but wrestling is not even that big in Tennessee," said the 24-year-old. "Most schools in Memphis don't even have wrestling. I think if I did have a strong background or have the privilege to do stuff and learn stuff, I'd probably already be a champion."
But Jackson came up the hard way, without the benefit of organized training and top-notch training partners. Call it the 'School of Hard Knocks', but Jackson's life is far from a cliché.
"Nothing's ever been given to me, so I'm used to it," said Jackson. "Most fighters have a real strong background. Take Kevin Randleman for instance. He's got a real strong wrestling background. You take other fighters; one may have a strong kickboxing background while another has a strong jiu-jitsu background. I didn't have that in anything. I just grew up fighting on the street all my life. I just knew how to fight."
And fight he did - anywhere and everywhere. But eventually the young 'Rampage' got a talking to from an uncle, and coupled with his own mental fortitude and a move to a more stable environment, Jackson suddenly had reason to leave the dead-end life behind.
"One of my uncles once sat me down and told me that if I didn't change the way I was living and the way I was acting, I wasn't going to live long," remembered Jackson. "I saw a lot of my friends disappearing, either going to prison or getting killed, and I didn't want that type of life. Strangely, something changed when we moved out of the neighborhood and we moved to a place where they had better things. They had wrestling in school and a lot of other things. Normally I was going to an all-black school, but there I went to a mixed school and got surrounded by a mixture of people. It was more positive for me and I felt how good I could be. My grades got better and I stopped doing the hustling I was doing. I got a job and I changed. And I kinda liked it. It was cool to try and do something positive. Sometimes it was hard for me to be totally good. I still went back to my roots when I had to, but I liked the change. I was wrestling and I wasn't fighting as much on the streets."
If you look at Quinton Jackson's background, it wasn't the greatest, yet he's also played a role in some bad situations he wound up in. But unlike many in similar circumstances, he never used his background as a crutch to walk him through. He accepted his lot and did something to change it. That's rare in any walk of life.
"It's not an excuse," said Jackson of his less than ideal formative years. "My family is from the country and they grew up poor on a farm, but a lot of my uncles have their own businesses, are airplane pilots, and they did something with their lives. My mom was poor and I didn't have everything I wanted. And I want to have things. I want to do things. So if I had the chance to make money fighting I'm going to do it and be the best so I can make some money and take care of my family. I'm going to give back to my mom and help them out so my little brother and sister can have things that I had to do without."
"One of the problems with me why I didn't do so good in school is that I was surrounded by the wrong people and I was kinda poor, so the kids would make fun of me because I didn't have the clothes that they had," continued Jackson. "So I really couldn't concentrate on getting my lessons. I always had to fight and talk **** to my classmates so they would leave me alone. I don't want my little sister and brother to have to go through that. I fight now, save some money and send it back home so they can just worry about getting their education. They can wear nice clothes and do nice things. My mom don't have to worry about how she's going to feed them and pay her bills and everything."
A few years after his first exposure to organized wrestling, his friend and former wrestling rival Dave Roberts exposed him to MMA. Jackson fell in love.
"I went off to college to wrestle and when I got back he took me to one of these fights," remembered Jackson. "These wrestlers were fighting and kicking everybody's ass. I was like, 'damn.' I grew up fighting all the time, but I always got in trouble for it. I was thinking, 'damn, I can fight without getting in trouble.' That's all I was thinking about. I started doing it, and I got pretty good at it, I guess."
He's being modest. After early wins in Gladiator's Challenge and King of the Cage, Jackson got his first chance at the big time when he was signed to fight Japanese superstar Kazushi Sakuraba in July of 2001. But there's always a catch. Jackson was forced to cut a substantial amount of weight to get closer to Sakuraba's size, and Pride inititally wanted 'Rampage' to weigh in on the day of the fight. Add to this the tasteless marketing campaign that painted Jackson as a homeless thug, and the deck was stacked from the get go.
"That kinda bothered me," said Jackson of the Pride marketing plan for the Sakuraba fight. "There are people over there that think I'm homeless today."
Jackson's woes in Pride didn't stop. He followed up the submission loss to Sakuraba with a KO over Yuki Ishikawa four months later, and as Christmas approached, a bout with Daijiro Matsui was going to be a nice way to put some cheer in his family's home.
It wasn't to be, as an accidental groin shot by Jackson prompted an Oscar-winning performance from Matsui and a DQ loss for 'Rampage'. Suffice to say that a mention of Matsui will produce an expletive-laced tirade unfit for a family publication.
But 'Rampage' rebounded, scoring three big wins (two in Pride and one in King of the Cage) in 2002, the capper was a victory over Igor Vovchanchyn last September.
As he opens 2003, Jackson is holding all the aces. And with two more victories, he will not only be the king of the middleweights in Pride, but he'll be that much closer to achieving his ultimate goals.
"I want to be one of the best fighters in the world, and not only in mixed martial arts," said Jackson. "Hopefully one day I'll be one of the highest paid as well."
By Thomas Gerbasi (March 12, 2003)
As Quinton Jackson prepares for his Pride 25 fight with Kevin Randleman Sunday, there are no elaborate press conferences, no need to turn away pesky interviewers or television cameras.
Despite being one half of one of the best mixed martial arts fights in the last couple of years, Jackson trains in obscurity in California, forced to travel to Japan to make any substantial money in the fight game.
But like a lot of things in life that he has no control over, Jackson accepts not being able to perform for his home fans.
"It don't bother me one bit because I fight in Japan," Jackson told MaxFighting. "That's where I go to make my money."
If he can beat Randleman, the former UFC heavyweight champion, there's going to be a shot at some bigger paydays and more importantly, a chance at unseating Vanderlei Silva as Pride middleweight champ.
Jackson looks at Sunday's bout as his title shot.
"I think he's a tougher than Vanderlei," said Jackson of Randleman. "If I get past him, I'll hopefully take out Vanderlei and be the champion of Pride for a few years. The way I see it, Vanderlei Silva's just holding my belt for me."
Against Randleman, Jackson will be facing an athletically gifted world-class wrestler. In Jackson, Randleman will be facing an athletically gifted fighter with a wrestling base. The subtle differences between the two will determine the winner. And despite the fact that neither fighter is a stranger to pre-fight trash talk, the mutual respect between the two leading up to this intriguing clash has been a pleasant twist.
"I respect him a whole lot," said Jackson. "He's an excellent wrestler and I look up to all the good wrestlers."
With a wrestling base, Jackson is one of the best ground and pounders in the game - no doubt a product of his time spent with Colin Oyama, Tito Ortiz, and Team Punishment. But 'Rampage' is also showing his worth as a kickboxer, scoring two stunning KOs of highly regarded Cyril Abidi in K-1 competition. It's getting to the point where Jackson's skills are progressing so fast that in a year's time no 205-pounder will have a chance in the ring with him.
Not bad for a guy who didn't even start competing in organized sports until he was 17.
"I didn't start wrestling until I was 17 and I did all right, but wrestling is not even that big in Tennessee," said the 24-year-old. "Most schools in Memphis don't even have wrestling. I think if I did have a strong background or have the privilege to do stuff and learn stuff, I'd probably already be a champion."
But Jackson came up the hard way, without the benefit of organized training and top-notch training partners. Call it the 'School of Hard Knocks', but Jackson's life is far from a cliché.
"Nothing's ever been given to me, so I'm used to it," said Jackson. "Most fighters have a real strong background. Take Kevin Randleman for instance. He's got a real strong wrestling background. You take other fighters; one may have a strong kickboxing background while another has a strong jiu-jitsu background. I didn't have that in anything. I just grew up fighting on the street all my life. I just knew how to fight."
And fight he did - anywhere and everywhere. But eventually the young 'Rampage' got a talking to from an uncle, and coupled with his own mental fortitude and a move to a more stable environment, Jackson suddenly had reason to leave the dead-end life behind.
"One of my uncles once sat me down and told me that if I didn't change the way I was living and the way I was acting, I wasn't going to live long," remembered Jackson. "I saw a lot of my friends disappearing, either going to prison or getting killed, and I didn't want that type of life. Strangely, something changed when we moved out of the neighborhood and we moved to a place where they had better things. They had wrestling in school and a lot of other things. Normally I was going to an all-black school, but there I went to a mixed school and got surrounded by a mixture of people. It was more positive for me and I felt how good I could be. My grades got better and I stopped doing the hustling I was doing. I got a job and I changed. And I kinda liked it. It was cool to try and do something positive. Sometimes it was hard for me to be totally good. I still went back to my roots when I had to, but I liked the change. I was wrestling and I wasn't fighting as much on the streets."
If you look at Quinton Jackson's background, it wasn't the greatest, yet he's also played a role in some bad situations he wound up in. But unlike many in similar circumstances, he never used his background as a crutch to walk him through. He accepted his lot and did something to change it. That's rare in any walk of life.
"It's not an excuse," said Jackson of his less than ideal formative years. "My family is from the country and they grew up poor on a farm, but a lot of my uncles have their own businesses, are airplane pilots, and they did something with their lives. My mom was poor and I didn't have everything I wanted. And I want to have things. I want to do things. So if I had the chance to make money fighting I'm going to do it and be the best so I can make some money and take care of my family. I'm going to give back to my mom and help them out so my little brother and sister can have things that I had to do without."
"One of the problems with me why I didn't do so good in school is that I was surrounded by the wrong people and I was kinda poor, so the kids would make fun of me because I didn't have the clothes that they had," continued Jackson. "So I really couldn't concentrate on getting my lessons. I always had to fight and talk **** to my classmates so they would leave me alone. I don't want my little sister and brother to have to go through that. I fight now, save some money and send it back home so they can just worry about getting their education. They can wear nice clothes and do nice things. My mom don't have to worry about how she's going to feed them and pay her bills and everything."
A few years after his first exposure to organized wrestling, his friend and former wrestling rival Dave Roberts exposed him to MMA. Jackson fell in love.
"I went off to college to wrestle and when I got back he took me to one of these fights," remembered Jackson. "These wrestlers were fighting and kicking everybody's ass. I was like, 'damn.' I grew up fighting all the time, but I always got in trouble for it. I was thinking, 'damn, I can fight without getting in trouble.' That's all I was thinking about. I started doing it, and I got pretty good at it, I guess."
He's being modest. After early wins in Gladiator's Challenge and King of the Cage, Jackson got his first chance at the big time when he was signed to fight Japanese superstar Kazushi Sakuraba in July of 2001. But there's always a catch. Jackson was forced to cut a substantial amount of weight to get closer to Sakuraba's size, and Pride inititally wanted 'Rampage' to weigh in on the day of the fight. Add to this the tasteless marketing campaign that painted Jackson as a homeless thug, and the deck was stacked from the get go.
"That kinda bothered me," said Jackson of the Pride marketing plan for the Sakuraba fight. "There are people over there that think I'm homeless today."
Jackson's woes in Pride didn't stop. He followed up the submission loss to Sakuraba with a KO over Yuki Ishikawa four months later, and as Christmas approached, a bout with Daijiro Matsui was going to be a nice way to put some cheer in his family's home.
It wasn't to be, as an accidental groin shot by Jackson prompted an Oscar-winning performance from Matsui and a DQ loss for 'Rampage'. Suffice to say that a mention of Matsui will produce an expletive-laced tirade unfit for a family publication.
But 'Rampage' rebounded, scoring three big wins (two in Pride and one in King of the Cage) in 2002, the capper was a victory over Igor Vovchanchyn last September.
As he opens 2003, Jackson is holding all the aces. And with two more victories, he will not only be the king of the middleweights in Pride, but he'll be that much closer to achieving his ultimate goals.
"I want to be one of the best fighters in the world, and not only in mixed martial arts," said Jackson. "Hopefully one day I'll be one of the highest paid as well."