Former UFC light heavyweight champ Quinton “Rampage” Jackson must really be feeling better. Apparently not content to have his name in the news just for felony charges and rumors of his November return to the Octagon, now he’s revisiting the topic of his loss to Forrest Griffin. Maybe he felt that his clash with “delirium” after the fight robbed him of the opportunity to talk about it, but he’s making up for lost time with this visit from the Ghost of Shit-Talking Past in a recent interview with the UK’s Fighter’s Only Magazine:

“I just want my fans to know, I was at my worst and Forrest was at his best – and I still beat him. …A man is not a man if he can’t ‘fess up to when he gets his ass kicked. See me, if I get my ass kicked I am like ‘yeah, I got my ass kicked’.

However, Jackson says that when he said those exact words at the end of the fight in July, “I was being sarcastic, because I really could not believe that it went the way it did”.

“I’m not a sore loser, shit happens. But I was hoping that Forrest would be a man and come out and say ‘You know what, I didn’t win that fight’, especially after he watched it.

“I wasn’t really sure, right at the end of the fight… I know he hurt me and punched me in the face a couple of times but I was bobbing and weaving and making him miss, stuff like that. I was hoping that he would come out later after he saw the fight and say ‘yeah, I saw the fight and I lost that fight.”

Daaaaaamn! First of all, Rampage really expected Griffin to come out after the fight and voluntarily say that he did not deserve to win the title? Has Rampage ever met any pro fighters? That’s just not their style. Especially with a fight that close, it’s standard operating procedure for both guys to claim they won and for both to go to their graves truly believing it. So basically Rampage wants Griffin to do what no other fighter, including him, would do in this situation.

And that brings us to the ‘sarcasm’ remark. As you loyal Potato Heads out there already know, we love sarcasm around here. In fact, we brought some statisticians in to crunch the numbers recently and they found that sarcasm accounts for exactly 74% of our writing (12% is devoted to untenable claims, 8% to factual inaccuracies, and 6% to bashing your favorite fighter). In other words, if we’re experts on anything, it’s sarcasm, and nothing about Rampage’s tone of voice or facial expression indicated that he was making an attempt at sarcasm. He didn’t even roll his eyes or mock Forrest’s voice!

He flat-out said that he got his ass kicked. Whether or not he believes it now, he appeared to believe it then. It’s fine to change your mind about it, but if he could have been convinced after the fight that he lost, isn’t reasonable for Forrest to still be convinced that he won?

Apparently not, says Rampage:

“After the fight, I said ‘I’ve got to give you a lot of respect, because you hurt my leg and you had a good game plan’,” he explains.

“But now, I don’t respect him as a man. Because if it was me, I would have said, ‘I have to give him a rematch right away, to remove all doubt’.

“I’m a man and when you fight it’s all about honour. I’m not angry at him or anything, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve lost respect for him as a man.”

Oh, well. At least he’s not angry at him. No animosity or anything. He just doesn’t respect him as a man. No biggie…

(See, now that’s sarcasm!)