RAMPAGE
Quinton Jackson. He lost big, to another man. Twice, in fact. To the same man. The first coming only hours after his merciless reduction of Chuck Liddell—“many, many moons ago, in Japan,” as Jackson himself likes to put it; the second in a fight, a year later, in 2004, that stirred the fledgling mixed martial arts fanbase wild. Got his ass whooped both times, by the same man.
It was Wanderlei Silva, a Brazilian—the man who did it. The same man whom that MMA world would, three years later, in 2006, call upon with a great uproar to fight Liddell, who had rebounded from his loss to Jackson in Japan to win seven straight fights and ascend to the top of the MMA world. Right alongside Silva, the Brazilian, the man who whooped Jackson. But then Silva lost, bad, right here in Las Vegas in February of this year, to an American (Dan Henderson), and the hunger for Silva’s fight with Liddell abated. Vanished, in fact. So the next most appetizing fight was the rematch between Liddell and Jackson.
Rampage: That’s what they call him. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. But just Rampage for short. He earned it when he started fighting in the late ’90s, due to his brawler’s style. “It’s called a whoop-that-ass style,” Jackson says. Indeed. That’s what he did. Whooped so much ass, in fact, that by November 9, 2003—the night he demolished Liddell in Japan—the MMA world salivated at the mere scent of a match between Jackson and Silva, the two baddest men on the planet. And they got it, that night, many, many moons ago.
And Jackson brought it, the rampage. The snarled upper lip, the oversized link chain around his neck, the whoop-that-ass aggression. Only he lost, big. By knockout. It was brutal—brutal: Jackson took a knee to the head, then a right hook square on the jaw, then another knee to the head; and then Jackson, falling all over the place, trying to hold on to Silva’s leg for dear life, took a kick to the back of the leg, then upstairs, and then he endured 10 more knees, at least seven of which connected solid, flush, followed by a flurry of more knees and punches and kicks. And then, Jackson, now out on his feet, suffered the final insult: He was led across the ring (it was in Japan, where they use rings, not cages, like America), Silva’s one hand on the back of his head, the other slapping his face, while the coup de grace was about to come, a knee to Jackson’s head, at which point the referee jumped in between the two men and called the fight over and Wanderlei Silva the victor.
So when Jackson returned to the ring the following month, the big question in the MMA world was, has Jackson lost it? The snarl, the indomitableness, the whoop-that-ass style—that which made him Rampage? Jackson himself resolved the uncertainty with a complete demolishment of not just that next opponent, but the one after that, too. And so the rematch with the Brazilian man who whooped his ass was made, and the MMA world waited. Crazed with hunger.
Then Jackson lost again. This time worse, in fact. This time it was unviewable—too vicious to watch: Jackson got caught with a wide right hook, wobbled, went into cover mode and exposed his neck to a Thai clinch, which Silva was quick to apply, pulling Jackson’s head down into his striking knees, colliding at a force greater than being hit by a car at 35 mph, experts say, the most forceful strike in unarmed combat. Four flush times, the last of which knocked Jackson out cold, sent him limp and bloody through the ropes, where he lay motionless for far too long to bear watching.
Jackson went on four months later to win his next fight by a split decision so controversial that it’s still argued against today, and then he lost his following fight, in April 2005, by another knockout. He faded from the upper sphere of MMA superstars, was no longer deemed one of the baddest men on Earth and, after two of his next three fights (all of which he won) were decided by the judges and not Jackson’s whoop-that-ass style, the question loomed: Had the spirit of Rampage been broken?
Chuck Liddell exacts revenge on Randy Couture
Then, at the end of 2006, Jackson signed on with the Ultimate Fighting Championship organization. Where the MMA world is now centered, and where Chuck Liddell now reigns supreme, not only as the light heavyweight champion but also as America’s most popular MMA fighter. After Jackson won his first fight in the UFC, by knockout, he admitted to the crowd in attendance that he had been nervous prior to the fight, which he said was a first for him.
“Any time someone loses, especially by knockout, a self-doubt sets in, and the fighter has to overcome that,” says UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner, who, in his prior occupation as head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, has seen decades’ worth of fights and fighters. “That mental aspect is one of the most underrated aspects of the game.”
Rampage Jackson fights his first-ever bout in a UFC octagon
And then Silva, the man who beat Jackson, twice, lost, as most fighters in MMA do at some time or another. For it is an unpredictable sport in which, as Jackson puts it, “things happen.” And all of a sudden the best light heavyweight fight in the MMA world became Jackson versus Liddell. And so it was made, for May 26.
But the questions remain: Has Jackson overcome the losses he’s suffered since the last time he fought Liddell?
“I don’t think about my losses,” says Jackson, whose typical flamboyant tone turns sullen and distant when the subject of his past defeats comes up. “It’s improper etiquette among fighters to even bring up losses.”
Will Jackson bring rampage to his fight against Liddell for the light heavyweight championship of the world, as he did during their first fight, many, many moons ago?
“My level of confidence is exactly where it should be,” says Jackson, his lip unsnarled and that indomitableness absent from his voice. “I’m ready to whoop his ass. Because that’s what I do. I whoop ass.”
ICEMAN
Chuck Liddell. He didn’t just lose to Quinton Jackson. No, sir. He got crushed, body and spirit.
You could hear it, unequivocal, in the way he wheezed as the man they call Rampage drove elbows into Liddell’s rib cage at the fight’s violent end; you could see it, unequivocal, in Liddell’s face after doctors and trainers rushed to his side as Jackson’s hand was being raised in victory. Crushed.
Jackson was too much. Too much aggression, too much attitude, too much ass-whoopin’. Which is to say, of course, too much rampage. Liddell’s corner had to throw in the white towel.
“You know,” says Liddell, “that was a long time ago. 2003.”
Yes, sir. It was: November 9, 2003. Back before Liddell turned himself into the light heavyweight champion of the UFC, as he is now. Before he became one of the stellar pugilists, if not the stellar pugilist, of this generation, as he is now. Before he earned the reputation as one of the most formidable men on the planet, as he is now. It was a long time ago, by the rate at which the MMA world turns. And since then Liddell has done nothing but enter the ring without reservation, with great intensity and focus and very heavy hands, and to win. By knockout. Including against Randy Couture and Jeremy Horn, legends in the world of mixed martial arts and the only two people other than Jackson who have beaten Liddell in his decade of professional MMA fighting.
In the respective rematches, Liddell fought Couture and Horn with more than just the primal fury of vengeance. Yes, sir, he fought like a man who had learned well from his mistakes, adapted and seized back generalship of the cage. Liddell says:
“I love competing; I hate to lose. So I always want revenge. The way I feel, I should’ve won those fights I lost. But I made mistakes—mistakes that I know I can go back to training camp and fix.”
But neither Couture nor Horn had beaten Liddell the way Jackson did. They had outmaneuvered Liddell, out-game-planned Liddell, out-experienced Liddell—indeed—but neither with the raw brutal rage with which Rampage demolished him. That was the difference, and it could be heard in Liddell’s wheezing, seen in his face, back in November 2003.
The president of the UFC, Dana White, who was there at ringside, remembers it like this: “Rampage came right at Chuck, the guy who was knocking everyone out at the time, and he went right after him, stood toe-to-toe with him, took him down, pounded him—he fought the perfect fight that night.”
“That’s not something I dwell upon,” says Liddell, a week out from the event and, according to him, as healthy, conditioned and confident as ever.
But can a man put out of his mind that kind of beating at the hands of another man whom he must face again?
“I only go back to my fights as motivation to get the rematches, and to train hard when I get them,” says Liddell.
The Iceman: Even after all that has transpired in the three and a half years since his last fight with Jackson—triumphs, conquests, losses avenged—Liddell has never been back in the cage with someone who can test his nerves. Which is why, when the UFC signed Jackson in December 2006, the MMA world shook with impatient jitters at the mere prospect of the rematch: Liddell versus the last man to beat him, the last man remaining against whom he hasn’t exacted revenge, the only man who has crushed Liddell.
“It’s gonna be weighing in Chuck’s mind,” says longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan, speculating on the rematch. “That that guy, Rampage Jackson, beat him down—took him down, got on top of him and elbowed him into submission.
“Chuck Liddell and Rampage Jackson is a very interesting fight.”