I am very dissapointed in Rampage Jackson
-
- July
- 7
Rampage Jackson walked into UFC 86 as the light heavyweight champion, and that was his title to lose.
He lost it.
This fight is the source of a lot of controversy. Rampage Jackson’s trainer, Juanito Ibarra, plans on protesting the decision, but it is highly unlikely anything with come out of the protest.
We got robbed,” Ibarra told Sherdog.com Sunday afternoon. “We won the majority of the fight.”
I wouldn’t say he got robbed. When you look at the CompuStrike data, the numbers are closely in favor of Forrest Griffin when you consider the rules of the UFC. Also, Forrest Griffin completely controlled round two; Rampage never got an offensive maneuver during that whole round. On top of injuring Rampage’s leg in round two, he secured a take down and landed 44 strikes while Rampage landed none the entire round. Forrest also secured several submission attempts during that round. This round played a key factor in awarding a unanimous decision to Forrest.
Rampage strikes did more damage, but the rules do not award points for the severity of strikes. Points are awarded for “aggression” and “octagon control”.
Here are the CompuStrike numbers:
Rampage landed a larger percentage of his shots, but Forrest threw a hell of a lot more punches. I expect that Rampage would have thrown more punches if he had better mobility, but he decided to stand there and let Forrest leg kick him at will instead of defending the kicks. More on that later.
Forrest also secured 4 submission attempts , Rampage secured none. Forrest landed 42 kicks to Rampages 3. Forrest landed 9 knees and Page was again shut out in this department.
Had Forrest Griffin not repeatedly dished out unanswered damage to Rampages’ front leg, I believe the outcome of this fight would have been much different. Rampage would have been more mobile, more fluent, and would have had more power. Even with limited power coming from his legs, he was still able to knock Forrest down on several occasions.
What baffles me the most is how the UFC light heavyweight champion, the most distinguished light heavyweight title in mixed martial arts, does NOT know how to check a leg kick. I realize Page doesn’t come from a kick boxing background, but not only is this kick boxing defense 101, it’s now MMA defense 101. Rampage stood there and let Forrest Griffin take his legs out at will. I don’t think he once lifted his front leg in any sort of attempt to check any of Griffin’s kick. A tremendous amount of power and mobility comes from your legs, and Forrest took that away from Rampage, and it paid off.
Hopefully Juanito Ibarra will include a little kick boxing defense in future training camps.
I am disappointed. I am not a big Forrest Griffin fan, but I respect what he did in the cage against Jackson. The rematch seems inevitable, but I bet there are a lot of light heavyweights salivating right now at the chance to get a title shot against Griffin.
Well, maybe not all light heavyweights.
cough Shogun cough
This entry was posted
on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 12:22 pm by Larry Vollmer.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
| 
It was a fixed fight to hand the LHW title to Forrest Griffin.
Sorry, Larry, but a series of leg kicks shouldn’t win a fight. Griffin didn’t connect on anything significant except that one leg kick that staggered Rampage. The “ground control” in round two was a joke, mostly consisting of Griffin rubbing his elbow in Rampage’s face. (What the hell was that?)
The unanimous decision and the absurd 49-46 from one of the judges pretty much confirms what was going on here. And of course we were treated to five rounds of Joe Rogan swinging from Griffin’s nuts.
It’s crazy, because we expect this kind of thing from EliteXC when it comes their “stars” like Kimbo Slice, but most MMA fans expect the UFC to be, you know, an actual competition. Obviously that’s not the case. Dana White FTL.
I have to be honest. I never felt like this fight was fixed,but was surprised by the UD.
Elite on the other hand, screamed of a work. This never appealed to me as one, but I don’t know. I think the rules have to be changed an re- evaluated. Bas Rutten has some great ideas for adjustments to the current scoring rules.
what did the scoring have to do with forrest kicking rampages ass? a single punch that knocked down forrest in the first is enough to win the entire fight? and who knew leg kicks is a stupid idea in MMA?? it’s a part of the sport. what should be articles about forrest being the new LHW champ is all bullshit articles about their boy rampage getting robbed.
Who said leg kicks were a bad idea? They are great weapons. I use them all the time in my training.
this DC fella who posted first. i agree with 85% of what you wrote…
an saying the fight was fixed is dumb. just dumb.
Oh ok – I mis read what you were trying to say.
out of curiosity, what did you disagree with?
what the fud..i actually agree with everything you wrote! haha . i got this one mixed up with bloody elbow because i thought it was you who said that you thought rampage won the fight. (was that confusing?) i guess you can be disappointed in rampage because he was supposed to dispose of forrest griffin with ease. forrest took the fight to him.
No, I thought he was winning until the later rounds when he didn’t do anything convincing enough to win the judges over. 3 punch combos was not enough.
I wanted him to win, but can accept that he lost. Neither of these guys are my favorites in the division anyway.
Rampage was the champ and left the figth with a bum leg and looking the same when the fight started. Forrest was beat up and landed punches that had no effect. Rampage clearly won Round 1 and 4. Forrest dominated round 2- maybe with a 10-8. Round 3 and 5 were close with novody doing much. Did forrest edge him out…maybe. Win a championship ….NO. However, what is a judge supposed to do at that point change his scorecard, that would be NBA BS. I wasn’t upset with the decision but upset with forrest winning the title with a poor performance. Didn’t he get his head bounced off the canvass a year or tweo ago by the dean of mean. It didn’t seem like the audience was happy with the decision either, maybe watching live had a different effect than the tv. How did Forrest get this title shot??? B/C he beat somebody that beat rampage in PRIDE??? On another note that i’m ranting….....
WHEN IS BISBING GOING TO FIGHT ANYBODY???? HE LOST TO HAMMILL???
unanimous? were the judges watching the fight? both fighters performed! regardless if you are a rampage or forrest fan, the fight was not nominated by one fighter, that is why the scored was questionable. go watch the fight again. forrest did not win every round nor did he dominate. both fighters were excellent. As for Juanito [rampages’ trainer\manager]...he should be protecting his fighter. He has been working in the fight world for over 20 years. I think he knows more about scoring than most of us.
Blindside – Bisping vs Leben at UFC 89. That is the main event, believe it or not.
Should be Bisping’s toughest test yet, and I personally hope he gets knocked out.
The people who think this fight was fixed are retarded… and absolutely void of any rational thought. This fight was damn close. Every major review/expert had it either in a tight decision to Forrest, a draw, or a tight decision to Rampage. It’s pathetic verbal diarrhea to claim a “fix”.
So Jackson landed more power punches… Even Ibarra said he never saw a knee as large and as swelled up as Jackson’s knee the next day. That’s damage too! And more lasting than a superficial cut and black eye on Forrest’s already not too pretty face.
Forrest won the ground game, the true level of damage inflicted, the conditioning, the striking (again, striking is not just punches but kicks, knees and elbows), the submission attempts and he was also the aggressor and controlled the fight. Jackson boxed better…that’s it… only one out of the 11 or so MMA disciplines, and people cry it was a fix? They know absolutely nothing about the sport!
Was the first round scored poorly by the judges? Most experts think so, but just as many have Forrest winning Rds. 3 and 5. Jackson was the champ and fought like the chump. He didn’t fight anything like he said he would… Ibarra is a cry baby…he trained his fighter to take a beating on his legs and become immobile.
The fight was very close, I had Forrest in Rds 2(10-8) 3 and 5. Others had it different. But a fix??? You idiots need a fix in your feeble brains!
Forrest trained harder (Jackson was at 250 and fat in the months before), is a well known overachiever, took some insults from Jackson before the fight, took some admittedly good shots and yet still controlled the fight… He surely had people on his side for those reasons as well.
A fix….. i love that…conspiracy theories willalways abound when you leave it in the hands of the judges… the funny thing is, that poster #1 above Mr.’DC’, even though he is mindless and angry, I’ll bet that he will still pay for UFC events in the future though he feels these things are ‘fixed”...now what does that say about him and his ilk? Pathetic.