Quinton Jackson

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (June 20 1978-) is an American professional mixed martial arts fighter.

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. 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

However, 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 quantity fighting against their flagship athlete 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. Though in the end Jackson succumbed to a rear naked choke from Sakuraba, his performance opened up the eyes of both the PRIDE's fan base and its executive office.

After besting Japanese 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 PRIDE 205-pound Grand Prix tournament, where after defeating Chuck Liddell in the semi-finals (and becoming the last of three people to defeat Liddell, after Jeremy Horn and Randy Couture), he fell to Wanderlei Silva in the finals.

Recently, Jackson lost to Mauricio Rua in the opening round of the 2005 PRIDE Grand Prix tournament. The loss followed a victory over Ricardo Arona, a second defeat to Wanderlei Silva, and a decision victory over Murilo Rua.

October 23rd, 2005, marked Quinton's return to the PRIDE ring with a technical knockout victory over Japanese fighter Hirotaka Yokoi. Jackson won his next bout at PRIDE 31 in a unanimous decision victory over South Korean fighter, Dong Sik Yoon.

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 announce it has signed Jackson and he will fight Matt Lindland (at light heavyweight) at WFA: King of the Streets on July 22 2006 at The Forum in Inglewood, California.

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. His fighting, unlike his lyrics, will not be changed as a result of his conversion, for as Jackson puts it, "Cheddar makes it better. And I wanna get better."

Also of note is Jackson's frequently hilarious ringside commentary and post-fight interviews, which if one pays close attention to are remarkably quick-witted and delivered with pitch perfect deadpan expression.

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.'"

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson resides in Irvine, CA with his wife Yuki and two children.

External links

American mixed martial artists | Living people