UFC 130 – Quinton “Rampage” Jackson says if he had his way he would have been fighting Forrest Griffin again

Former UFC light heavyweight champion, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has revealed that he had no part in picking out Matt Hamill as his next opponent inside the octagon ahead of their UFC 130 clash this weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada, adding if he’d had his way he would have been facing Forrest Griffin once again.
Speaking via UFC.com, Jackson said:

“Am I (the last man standing)? I don’t know how long I’ll be around. (Laughs) I’ve been fighting for a long time, I’ve been putting in a lot of work, and sometimes I don’t feel like I’m as appreciated as I should be. I don’t think I get the props that I deserve. I was the first-ever undisputed champion, the first one to unify the (UFC and PRIDE) titles (against Dan Henderson in 2007), and that’s not mentioned at all and stuff like that. That’s not the main reason why I fight, but at the end of the day it does cross my mind at times.”

“I’ll just be myself no matter how people view me. But you just gotta get used to it, people being all in your business and people wanting to talk to you. Most fans are nice. You’ll just get a few people that make the situation weird every now and then, but most are nice. A lot of fans don’t realize that you don’t choose your opponents. A lot of fans assume that I chose to fight Hamill, and some fans can be kinda rough on you. You don’t get to choose who you want to fight. If that was the case, I would have fought Forrest (Griffin) a long time ago.”

Jackson then turned his attentions to his fight in 24 hours time with fast rising star, Matt Hamill at UFC 130 in Las Vegas, Nevada, a fight many fans are expecting him to handily win.

“Every fight I fight, I want to knock people out or finish the fight. But one thing that non-fighters don’t understand is that fights are fights; you can’t plan what happens. I’m not gonna go out there and say ‘oh, let me lay and pray;’ I go out there like I want to finish this guy. But it don’t always work out the way you want it to. It’s a fight. I’m going into this fight and I’m gonna try to knock his head off, but if it don’t come I’ll be disappointed, but it won’t make me stop.”

“I feel like the last couple people I’ve been fighting don’t want to fight, and it’s hard to fight a guy who don’t want to fight. Jardine was a good fight and I was hoping to knock him out, but he was an awkward guy and that’s the first time I fought when I was overtrained. I just came off that Wanderlei camp, and that was the hardest camp I did in my life, so I’m just glad that I made it through the fight. But since then, it seems like I’ve been fighting guys that don’t want to fight.”

“Maybe after the fight when you win and you made your coaches and your family proud, and the fans are cheering for you and stuff like that. You’re celebrating after the fight and you’ve got a few aches and pains and you feel like you’ve been in a fight, but all your friends are smiling and telling you what you did in the fight; that’s the fun part and the part that you forget about all the time. Then afterward you remember ‘oh yeah, this is why I fight.’ It’s for that moment. When you’re walking back to your locker room after the fight, the fans are yelling your name and trying to give you high fives, that’s the fun part right there.”

Jackson is coming off a tight decision win over karate exponent, Lyoto Machida late last year, a fight that put him back in the winning column and back in the title mix at 205 pounds. Can this legend of MMA climb back up the ranks and recapture the title before he hangs them up for good?