Rampage: I Would Beat Wanderlei

The Ultimate Fighting Championship Light Heavyweight Champion, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, was twice beaten by Wanderlei Silva in Pride. Despite these setbacks - he is sure he would beat the “Axe Murderer” if the two met again. Rampage told the Opie and Anthony show:

”I think that if I fought Wanderlei Silva in the UFC I would have beat him. Wanderlei was the Chuck Liddell of Pride. If you were beating Wanderlei on the ground, the referee’s would stand you right up. It happened to me. It happened to other fighters that fought him.

It’s tougher to fight in Pride. The UFC is ran by regular people… Pride wasn’t. I don’t know how much I can say. The UFC is real. The referee can kind of alter the fight in Pride.

Me and Silva don’t even talk to each other. Silva is the type of guy that thinks everyone should be afraid of him. The way I react around him is different. I am not afraid of Wanderlei Silva. They call him “The Axe Murder” because he destroys people in his fights. They threw him chumps and he murdered them. Look at his record of guys he fought. This guy is “The Chump Murderer”. I speak my mind around him and he looks at me all crazy like I shouldn’t be saying that. I think some of the referees took payoffs in Pride. In Japan, I promise you something was up.”

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson has established himself as one of the leading lights of the UFC. In his second fight for the promotion - he took the Ultimate Fighting Championship Light Heavyweight Championship. He won the belt from “The Iceman”: Chuck Liddell at UFC 71: Liddell vs Jackson II in May 2007. In his first defence, he took on another legend in the shape of fellow Pride veteran Dan Henderson. After five gruelling rounds at UFC 75: Champion vs Champion, Rampage unified the UFC and Pride belts at the 02 Arena in, Greenwich, South East London. Since then, Rampage has emerged as a favourite of UFC fans, but this was not the case all along. He remembered:

”After the fight where I knocked Chuck out, I got booed. I was devastated. I am a fan friendly fighter. I noticed after that fight [the Liddell fight] I wasn’t that fan friendly to American fans anymore. I’ve always been an international fighter because I fought in Japan and have more friends and family over there”.

Jackson’s new found popularity has seen him chosen to be a coach on the new season of the reality TV show: The Ultimate Fighter. As has become the tradition - he will fight his rival coach when the season ends. The other coach is Forrest Griffin and the two are slated to clash at UFC 86, which is due to be held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas on 5th July 2008.

Griffin pushed himself into title contention with his shock, submission victory over Mauricio Rua at UFC 76: Knockout.