(Video courtesy YouTube/Fighters Only)

Quinton Jackson recently spoke to Fighters Only’s John O’Regan, and as usual, Rampage had a lot of interesting, although grammatically questionable things to say about everything from possible future opponents and his phony fans to his icy relationship with the UFC.


Here are a few notable quotes from the interview:

On Rashad as an opponent:

"Well, I would have preferred to do The Ultimate Fighter against Machida; that would have fixed the problem back in the day, from square one. Just ‘X’ Rashad out because he don’t have the damn belt. But Machida’s English isn’t so good, so I had to fight Rashad. He is all cocky thinking he done something good by being on The Ultimate Fighter but I’m like dude you just got the knocked the hell out. You are on The Ultimate Fighter by default because the guy who knocked you out don’t speak English. That’s what I am dealing with. It’s annoying actually. ??I feel like fighting Rashad is a step backwards, because he doesn’t have the belt anymore. But if things go right, this will be a nice warm-up fight for Shogun. God willing if everything works out it will be nice. Everybody knows I took time off, it would be stupid to go right into a big title fight with Shogun so this will be a good test for me. If I lose to Rashad I don’t even deserve to get my belt back!??"

On a rematch with Shogun:

"[It would be] very interesting. The fight with Shogun, it wasn’t me. I was already injured. I didn’t want to make that known before the fight, tell everybody ‘oh I’m injured’. Fighters always do that! People ask you how you doing and you are like ‘I’m in the best shape ever.’ We don’t want our opponents to know [the opposite]. ??I will tell you now – it don’t matter, it was years ago – back in those days I only did six week camps because PRIDE would call on you at any time, so I stayed in shape year round. First three weeks camp was going good then I got an ankle injury and I couldn’t run anymore, and that was the only way I got my cardio back then. PRIDE first round was ten minutes. I should have just backed out of the fight but I looked at him and thought, ‘He hasn’t fought anybody in PRIDE; just a couple of Japanese guys.’ I didn’t think he was that good, you know?? He crashed me. Right away, boom, took me out. He hurt my rib with knees. Totally unexpected, he jumped on me right away. I am trying to pace myself so I don’t get tired in the first round and Shogun just jumped on me. That fight has haunted me all this time. Now it still haunts me and it’s time to get him back." 

On his loss to Griffin:

"I didn’t train properly; I got injured in the camp. I got those healed up, but I was way overweight, didn’t train. Believed in my own crap, ‘I’m the champion, I just won the undisputed belt!’ I got a little injured in the fight with Dan Henderson but all I had was like a little ligament in my pinky and I ended up not training at all! I could have kept running or something, instead of being all ‘oh I’m hurt and getting another loss.’’ You would think I would have learned from the Shogun fight not to go in unprepared but in my mind I thought I would be prepared, because I saw Forrest coming off The Ultimate Fighter and I thought, ‘He has a glass jaw, I can beat this dude.’  Now that fight haunts me, another loss on my record. ??I know I won that fight but its still one of those things that haunts you; it’s on your record. I know I won that fight, he didn’t whoop my ass. Everyone asked me afterwards why I said that in the cage, I was like, ‘I was being sarcastic’. I was trying to deal with my emotions, trying not to be outraged and all crazy. I could have cussed and all that but I would only have embarrassed myself and my family; now I want to go get Rashad. Nice warm-up fight; kick his ass, fight Shogun, redeem myself for my sleep – for my mind, then go and beat the hell out of Forrest, retire him??. [I want to hurt him] that bad — retire him. Only reason is because of the way Forrest acted afterwards, when he knows he lost the fight. You go back and watch the footage. When they said he won, he was so surprised. That fight was a controversial fight just like Machida-Shogun 1 was a controversial one. But Forrest was the golden boy because of TUF and me, well…"

On his rocky relationship with the UFC:

"Really, to be honest it’s all my management; they wanted me to work things out. Its still hard dealing with the UFC and stuff now, you know? If I had my way I still would be retired and do my own thing. I want to promote my own show; I want to be like De La Hoya around this mother. I don’t need the way they don’t want you to make money. Stop you’re after party, stop your sponsors. They do all this, its like, ‘Man! Let us make money!’ 

For years I fought in the UFC and didn’t agree with a lot of stuff, but I kept my mouth shut, I didn’t say anything. But it’s hard to keep your mouth shut when people keep stepping on you, you know? I still say that the UFC has a lot of good qualities. I re-signed with them and I have six more fights, but right away we tried to work on our relationship and right away they messed things up, right away! Already, I am not happy with them again. ??I don’t know, I don’t care [if they feel the same way]! They struck first… I don’t care if they happy with me or not, I do my job. I put butts in seats, I sell pay-per-views. Whether I win lose or draw I do my job. I feel like I should be compensated to the maximum for what I do. I put my life in the line."

On his fans and haters:

"Yeah I got twitter, Rampage4Real, and they can go to my website. I just did the website and I was happy with it but I want to make it better, putting things up there got kind of hard. I am going to work closer on the site, make it a little bit deeper. I feel like my website is for my fans, not other peoples. We got some assholes on there – if people don’t like me why come to my website? So it’s going to be catered to my fans and not haters, although they cool because if you ain’t got haters you ain’t doing good! But they wont like the website too much more because I am going to put up pictures of all the fighters I destroyed. I just want the fans to know that ever since the Chuck fight I have been more stand-offish to them but I want to know who my real fans are, some people are fake and I cant stand fake people. More people were coming to me and I felt they were fake so I became stand-offish. ??Pretty soon I am going to come out with a system where I know they are real fans. If they show me they are real Rampage fans, they can get anything they want. My fans are like my friends. But there is some fake people out there, they are booing you when you walk out but later they all in your face wanting to be cool. So right now the good guys suffer with the bad but I have a great idea for how I can know my fans when I go to the fights and I go to the shows, I can tell my real fans from the haters.??"

I wonder if his method of weeding out his "real fans" involves energy drinks, fasting and watching The Secret.