Jackson no longer rampages through fights

LAS VEGAS – Quinton "Rampage" Jackson stole the show at the post-fight news conference following UFC 130 on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The former Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight champion bantered with reporters and kidded with UFC president Dana White following his one-sided victory over Matt Hamill.

It was fun, but it would have been much more enjoyable had he stolen the show with his performance in the cage.

A top collegiate wrestler, Hamill was unable to come close to taking Jackson down and when he couldn't, seemed to have no idea what else to do. Jackson, though, didn't do much more and the result was that the crowd of 12,816 booed lustily at the end. As Jackson walked to his locker room, he turned to a group of reporters and asked, "Was it that bad?"

It was, providing a dismal ending to a lackluster card. There were some exclamation points – knockouts by Travis Browne and Brian Stann immediately leap to mind – but the card was far from one of the UFC's best.

Jackson said after the bout that he is afraid he fractured his left hand and plans to go to see a doctor on Tuesday. If he gets cleared medically, White said he'll fight champion Jon Jones next.

Jackson had vowed a knockout, but though he landed consistently, he never came close to putting Hamill away.

"I think I needed a hammer," Jackson said, joking. "Man, that guy can take a punch. I hit him with everything but the toilet."

Hamill's best defense was staying at a safe distance. He tried to shoot, but never seemed to do so with great passion or intensity and Jackson easily fended each off. He didn't go down once.

"I was a little shocked by Rampage's hips and his ability to defend the takedown," Hamill said. "I wanted to bait him in so that I could secure the double leg. He defended well and was strong just like we expected."

But while Hamill was a disappointment, so too was Jackson. He turned into more of a counter puncher and wasn't able to put together multi-punch combinations.

He was reminded of the fact that he hasn't scored a knockout since stopping Wanderlei Silva at UFC 92 on Dec. 27, 2008, but said the reason is because fighters are spending extra time working to neutralize his power.

"I was OK with my performance, but I wanted to do a little bit more," Jackson said. "I knew that I could stay on my feet with Matt Hamill, but Matt had a great game plan and I saw it as soon as I got in there with him. By how far away he was standing from me, I could tell he was setting me up to take me down. He had some great low leg kicks and that made me not do what I wanted to do."

A lot of guys had that problem on Saturday. In a heavyweight fight, Frank Mir outwrestled Roy Nelson and won a wide unanimous decision. Mir easily took Nelson down and controlled him on the ground in a fight that didn't please White.

Nelson, who has now lost two in a row, tried to joked about his inability to match Mir's wrestling.

"I brought Dan Hardy in for my wrestling this week," Nelson joked, referring to the UFC welterweight with notoriously poor wrestling. "You can see that English wrestling is not as good as American wrestling."

White, though, didn't find much of it funny. The fight wasn't a hit and that didn't sit well with him. He was talking about Mir-Nelson when he said "I'm not happy about the performance of either one of them," but he also could easily have been talking about Jackson-Hamill, as well.

Had it been the opener on the card, it might not have gotten so much negative attention, but a main event on a high-profile show with a title shot at stake for Jackson made the stakes higher.

"When you're the main or co-main event, you have to go out and perform," White said. "When you don't, you'll hear my opinion, and you'll hear it from the fans and media, too."

Jackson said he thought he'd be ready to fight Jones for the belt later in the year. Jones won the title by defeating Mauricio "Shogun" Rua at UFC 128 in March, a shot he got when Jackson was unable to take it because he didn't have enough time to shed the weight.

Jones has been battling publicly with his former friend, Rashad Evans, whom Jackson has also feuded with often.

"Anybody who knows Rashad, they're going to have a feud with him," Jackson said. "I don't know Jones, and I have nothing against him, but he has my belt."

Jones, though, probably isn't too concerned about losing it after watching Jackson perform on Saturday. While Hamill was more responsible for the dull bout, Jackson as the marquee fighter and bigger name deserves more than his share of it.

He wasn't in great condition and he didn't seem like he had the killer instinct that helped make him one of the most popular fighters in the world. A bout against the highly regarded Jones would clearly motivate him, but the time has come for Jackson to show the Rampage side of him more often.

"He's one of the top two or three light heavyweights in the world," White said.

At one point, he was for sure. But he's going to need to begin performing like it fairly soon. These lackluster performances, though, are becoming all too common.