Bellator held a conference call yesterday to allow the media to chat with their major new signing, former UFC star Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and you can listen to the full audio below.
Perhaps the most interesting thing for me here is that ‘Rampage’ indicated he might be keen to move up to heavyweight.
“I think heavyweight would be a good move because I like the big guys,” Rampage said. “I think I’d be faster than them. I don’t mind trying to knock out some big guys.”
As much as it would be interesting to see how ‘Rampage’ would fare against heavyweights, I do think this isn’t a particularly great idea.
For one thing, ‘Rampage’ has a habit of getting out of shape inbetween fights and doesn’t enjoy training so I wonder whether not having to worry about making weight might make it a little too easy for him to take his foot off the accelerator and not work as hard in camp.
More than that though, there’s not a whole lot of big fights for ‘Rampage’ in Bellator as it is, and even less so at heavyweight. They have just signed Cheick Kongo (actually, according to Bjorn Rebney yesterday that’s not a done deal yet despite media reports), but they are long-time friends and training partners so I don’t see that one happening.
The reality is that when this deal was first announced everyone’s first thoughts were of a ‘Rampage’ Vs ‘King Mo’ fight at light-heavyweight which would be the biggest bout in Bellator history.
However, according to ‘Rampage’, despite having a rivalry with him in the past, he’s now friends with ‘King Mo’ and is actually talking to him about being his tag team partner over at TNA Wrestling.
So, only a day into their new deal it seems that Bellator are already getting a taste of what the UFC has had to deal with over a number of years. While he brings a lot of upsides to the table, including being able to generate a lot of media interest, he also dances to the beat of his own drum and won’t always do what you hope he will.
Listen to the full media call below
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