Following the EXCLUSIVE interview that MMABay conducted on earlier this week with former UFC light heavyweight champion, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson regarding his thoughts towards heated rival Rashad Evans, we have been swamped with requests from his fans to find out the full story behind his retirement and his current position with the UFC.
Due to this we took “Rampage” up on his previous offer of another interview in order to get to the bottom of the situation and to ask him about the movie business in general and the Memphis native wasn’t shy on sharing his thoughts.
“I’m addressing the fans only here, I think I owe them an explanation. Yeah I feel the things I said (in my blog) are true and yeah, I don’t like Rashad Evans because of the type of person he is. He talks smack and he tries to turn around on how it’s me that’s the one who’s talking smack and not him. At first I really wanted this fight to get my belt back but since doing “The Ultimate Fighter” show and six weeks of him talking the way he’s talking and him just being the way he is, yeah it makes me wanna fight Rashad, especially after he said he’d punch me in the face for free. I’m having none of that either.”
“The bottom line is I’m thinking, ‘What should I do?’ My family is standing behind me 100% and my kids are too young to even care. All my kids know is I’m always gone and I’m not spending much time with them and I even asked my dog how does he feel and my dog said, ‘Who the hell are you, I don’t know even know you no more. I don’t even know you, why you even talking to me?’ My dog just looked at me, licked his nose, lit up a fart and walked out my room.”
“Everybody knows I’m doing this A-Team movie and now I’ve got a lot of other movie offers and it’s for big money. So I’m thinking, ‘What should I do? Should I let an organisation disrespect me, tell me what I can’t do, make loads of money off me and call me a baby?’ I love the fans. I really do love the fans and I’m thinking, ‘Should I go out there and give them what they wanna see?’ The fans buy the Pay-Per-Views, they give you the strength to go out there and put on a show because their cheering for you but I’ve grown to like making movies. This movie is really fun, I get to shoot people and that something I’ve never done before because I’m too nice of a guy. But every time I shoot somebody I see Rashad’s face over and over, like I get to shoot Rashad thousands of times and it’s fun. I get to beat people up. I can put anybody’s face on them and beat the hell out of them.
“People are coming up to me with all these other movies and I’m thinking, ‘Man, do I really wanna bust my ass in training every day, have all these injuries, worries about whether I look good and whether I’m going to win?’ I don’t have that with the movies, I already know what’s gonna happen, it’s scripted so there’s just no worries. At the end of the day I go home, I can just kick back and enjoy myself. But I can’t lie, my heart is with fighting. When I meet my good fans on the street and they say, ‘Oh man, you’re the reason why I got into the UFC’ or I see a fan wearing my t-shirt it, means a lot to me. It means a lot to me that the fans like me and my fighting style and I really respect that. That’s a part of fighting that would keep me there and keep me motivated.”
“I want the fans to know that I’m not abandoning you just because of the comments from Dana White or the UFC. Don’t think that I’m running away or selling out because the main reason I got into fighting is to make money, I’ve always been honest about that. I want to take care of my family cos my Mom and Dad never really had a whole lot. they’ve never really gone nowhere. I want them to go on vacation to Hawaii, and do what normal people do on vacation. I want my Mom to have a nice house, a nice car, wear nice dresses and never have to worry about anything like that. Whether you guys know it or not I’ve always wanted to do movies, but I know fighting is what got me there and I’ve still got love for my fans.”
“But Rashad, that boy, he just don’t know who I am really. He don’t know that he shouldn’t talk to me like that. He has no idea what he’s dealing with. The only thing I can tell you fans is everybody knows I’m a spiritual person and I have to leave it up to my heavenly father. I’m gonna pray to him and ask him what role he wants me to take, what road he wants me to go. He’s the one that’s given me all the skills that I have. For Dana to say that I’m not a movie star and that he’s heard it before, I don’t think there’s been someone like me. So I’m going to pray to my Farther who gave me these skills and see where he wants me to go and leave it up to him. If he wants me to fight and do movies or just do movies or just fight then he’ll direct me. I’m gonna put everything in his hands.”
As previously stated, Quinton has an open policy to talk to MMABay ONLY on the situation surrounding his retirement from the UFC and has promised further interviews in the coming days.
By Michael Pepper. (Follow me on Twitter)mmabay.co.uk/Story%2002803.html
