The Rise and Fall of Rampage Jackson: Part 6

In part 5 of this series, I left off just as Rampage received the news that he would be fighting once more for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship.  His opponent, this time, would be the young phenom, Jon "Bones" Jones, who had just destroyed Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (a man who once destroyed Rampage...).

By most accounts, Rampage took the training for this fight seriously.  After his loss to Forrest Griffin, Rampage admitted that he had barely even trained.  But for this title fight, he started training for Jones a mere two weeks after defeating Matt Hamill. This dedication paid dividends for his physique, and it showed at the weigh-ins.  Rampage, who often balloons to north of 235 pounds between fights, came in a pound under the Light Heavyweight limit of 205.  He looked the part of a man ready to regain his title. A man ready to risk everything in the cage.

But that wasn't what we got. Instead, we got a man who had no answers for the young champion.  Jon Jones had his way with him.  Jones kicked him in the head, the calves, the body and the thighs.  

He punched him, elbowed him, and poked him in the eyes.  

I may have gone all Dr. Seuss just then, but Dr. Seuss would have been an appropriate fight commentator that night, because Rampage seemed frozen.  It was as if he had forgotten he was fighting for the undisputed championship of the world.  It was bizarre to watch.

At the end of the second round, Jones pulled guard and slapped a triangle onto Rampage just as the bell sounded to end the round.  It wasn't as if Jones thought he could win the fight with that move and with such little time remaining--triangle chokes normally take several seconds to render their victim unconscious.  No, Jones was sending a message to Rampage and to the whole world.  The message was simple: I can finish this anytime I want.

So why didn't he just finish things?  I believe it was because Jones was having too much fun beating the crap out of Rampage.  At the last second of the third round, Jones shot for a double leg takedown.  As the bell rang, he lifted Rampage onto his back and then tossed him backwards, dropping him face first onto the canvas.  He walked away without a single backward glance.  Joe Rogan stated, "Whoa, that was a major diss..."

And Rampage was powerless to do anything about it.  In the fourth round, Jones battered Rampage with ease.  Ultimately, he took him down, took his back, sank a rear naked choke, and made him tap.  It was a humiliating and inglorious end to what he had hoped would be his return to glory.

He would fight twice more in the Octagon, losing both times.  Ultimate Fighter winner, Ryan Bader, would beat him by unanimous decision, as would recent title challenger, Glover Teixeira. Throughout it all, Rampage complained that the UFC didn't respect him enough and didn't pay him enough.  When his contract ran out, the UFC let him walk.

He walked to Bellator, the organization that has been like a chihuahua nipping at the UFC's heels.  They're not big enough to do any real damage, but they sure are annoying.  Most annoyingly, they refused to let one of their top lightweights, Eddie Alvarez, leave the organization for the proverbial greener pastures of the UFC after his Bellator contract had expired.  They kept him in litigation until he finally relented and gave up on his UFC dream. 

To their chagrin, Eddie came back and beat their lightweight champion, Michael Chandler. He then dropped out of his rubber match with Chandler this week, claiming a head injury. With Alvarez/Chandler 3 scrapped, guess who gets the main event?  You guessed it.

Rampage.

Since signing with Bellator, Rampage has won two fights.  Both have been impressive knockout victories.  In his first fight outside of the Octagon, he was matched with fellow UFC alumni, Joey Beltran.  In his second fight, he was matched with former Bellator champion, Christian M'Pumbu.  Rampage looked good in those fights.  He deserves credit for that.  But let's be clear: he should look good against that caliber of opponent.  Neither Beltran or M'Pumbu boast a world-class record.  Rampage was far and away the biggest name either man had ever faced.

This weekend he will face Muhammad Lawal, who is also known as "King Mo."  Lawal owns an impressive wrestling background and ever-improving boxing.  Unfortunately, he also owns a questionable chin.  He has been knocked absolutely stiff twice in his short mixed martial arts career--once by Rafael Calvacante and once by Emmanuel Newton.  Newton, in fact, beat him a second time when they rematched in November 2013.

While Lawal has big wins over guys like Gegard Mousasi and Roger Gracie, those losses of his keep me from getting too excited about him.  With that being said, his wrestling may be good enough to beat Rampage.  Chances are, Lawal will not stand and trade punches with Rampage.  At least, that wouldn't be the smartest strategy.  Rampage's chin is proven. He can take one heck of a punch.  Additionally, Rampage hits like a Peterbilt.  If guys like Calvacante and Newton can knock out Lawal, you'd better believe that Rampage can do it if he hits him clean.

So I think Lawal will likely employ the same strategy he used against Gegard Mousasi.  He'll shoot for the takedown over and over, and try to grind out a decision. The scary thing for Rampage is that Lawal may be good enough to do it.

I see this ending one of two ways: Lawal by unanimous decision or Rampage by knockout. Since Rampage has accomplished more on a world-class level, I lean toward Rampage getting the win.  With that being said, I would not be surprised by a Lawal decision victory.

If Lawal wins, it could mean the last chapter of the Rampage saga. If Rampage wins, he's still just a big fish in a small pond since he's no longer swimming in the big blue oceans of the UFC.

Either way, it will be interesting to watch play out.

Until then.

On Matt "The Immortal" Brown

Matt Brown is all man.  More importantly, he is all fighter. 

Not long ago, I wrote a post titled "Natural Born Fighter."  It was about Yoel Romero.  Read it HERE.  In it, I wrote about how Yoel seemed to truly enjoy fighting.  He enjoyed hitting people, and he enjoyed getting hit.  The tougher a fight got, the more he seemed to enjoy it. Well that perfectly describes Matt Brown.

I first saw Matt "The Immortal" Brown on the 7th season of The Ultimate Fighter back in 2008.  Even back then, it was obvious that Matt wasn't in the house to play games.  He was there to fight.  The other contestants spoke of him in hushed tones.  They spoke of him with awe and reverence.  He won his first 2 fights on the show, stopping Josh Hall and then knocking out Jeremy May with a head kick, before he was stopped by eventual season winner, Amir Sadollah, by arm bar.  Even in the loss, Matt gave a good account of himself.

After entering the UFC, Brown went 5-5 in his first 10 fights in the UFC, though I still think he deserved the decision against Dong Hyun Kim.  His losses were all by submission or decision.  After that, he won his next 7 fights in a row.  The 7th was this past Saturday, against Eric Silva, in a fight that will likely be in the running for fight of the year.  Brown survived a vicious body kick and subsequent choke attempt by Silva for the first 3 minutes of the fight.  Many observers, including myself, thought Matt wouldn't make it out of that first round after seeing Silva fold him in half with the body kick.

But we forgot that Matt Brown is a real fighter.  Not a sportsman.  Not an athlete.  A fighter. Getting hurt simply warmed him up.  This is not to say that Brown is nonathletic or unsportsmanlike. He is both athletic and sportsmanlike.  But he is, at heart, a fighter. A fighter who fought his way out of the choke Silva had slapped around his throat. A fighter who then put a world class beating on the handsome Brazilian.  It was violent.  And it was technical. Every shot was calculated to hurt his opponent.  Every shot.  He didn't throw feints.  He didn't dance in and out of harm's way.  Instead, he gritted his teeth, waded forward and went to war.

Eric Silva tried to keep Brown at a distance, but "The Immortal" cut off the cage time and time again, forcing Silva to engage.  When he did, Brown smashed him with punches and crushing elbow strikes.  Though Silva had his moments, landing several more body shots that made Matt wince, it was Brown who did the most damage.  It was Brown who controlled the fight.  He broke Silva's body and he broke his will.  

In the third round, he straddled Silva's turtled-up body, and dropped sledgehammer fists and elbows on him until the referee had seen enough blood and put a stop to the carnage.

With the win, Matt Brown put himself one fight away from a title shot.  Indeed, he may get the title shot if the champion's next challenger gets injured.  Regardless, Matt Brown is sitting in a great position.

Let me go back to that whole Matt-Brown-is-a-real-fighter comment I've made a few times in this piece.  More and more, the mixed martial arts top ten rankings are being filled by guys who are phenomenal athletes and expert tacticians.  Guys with natural aptitudes, who found that punching came easy, or who found they had a knack for jiu-jitsu.  Perhaps they were blessed with natural strength and were persuaded to try out for their highschool wrestling team. Perhaps their strength was coupled with a strategical mind, one that could easily spot flaws in their opponents. And maybe they were also hard workers, willing to put in countless hours in training to hone their natural abilities.  These are the building blocks for champions.

But how many of them got into mixed martial arts because they simply loved to fight?  When the UFC first hit the scene in the early 90's, the participants were often guys who would have likely been fighting that weekend anyway, except they would be fighting illegally in a bar or in a parking lot.  Guys like Pat Smith, Harold Howard, Don Frye, and, of course, Tank Abbot seemed positively delighted to throw down at a moment's notice. No pay check required.

Matt Brown would have fit in quite well with that crowd. He shares their addiction for the rush that is unique to combat sports.  They can't find it in team sports like basketball or football.  In those sports, there's too many time-outs and too many other players that can alter the game's outcome.  They can't find it in individual sports like tennis, either, since there's little chance of getting hurt or of hurting someone else.  There's something about using one's own bare hands--indeed, one's whole body--to dominate another that can be intoxicating.  Euphoric. Matt Brown, undoubtedly, has been drunk on that feeling. He has shot it into his veins just as surely as he once shot heroin into them.  

The fact that Brown once nearly died from a heroin overdose reinforces how strong his discipline and determination have become. He is a man who clawed his way out of a hole--a hole that has claimed many less determined souls.  And he has to continue clawing his way out every day, because a single lapse in willpower could find him sliding hopelessly back into the abyss.

Keep clawing, Matt Brown.  Keep clawing.  

Until next time.