Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson won Bellator’s light-heavyweight tournament on pay-per-view at the weekend after claiming a unanimous decision victory over his rival Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal, but it’s not been revealed that just 24 hours earlier he was almost pulled from the card due to a backstage incident.
At the Bellator 120 weigh-ins on Friday night Rampage shoved King Mo after their staredown. Although the two men were quickly broken apart before things escalated, The Mississippi Athletic Commission informed Rampage afterwards that he was going to be fined $10,000 for his actions.
Rampage was apparently “extremely irate” at the commissioner Jay Lewis, who told MMAfighting.com that the fighter got in his face shouting obscenities.
Lewis claims that as a result of this the commission looked into the possibility of removing Rampage from the card, but after speaking with Bellator they opted against that and instead cooler heads prevailed with the fighter apologizing and accepting that he deserved the fine.
No doubt that prompted a huge sigh of relief from Bellator who have been somewhat jinxed in their efforts to host their first ever pay-per-view event, with their first attempt being scrapped late last year after Tito Ortiz pulled out of a headline fight with Rampage at short notice due to an injury, while just last week the main event for this past Saturday night’s show was also canceled after lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez suffered a concussion in training.
Thankfully they did still manage to press ahead with the PPV with a reshuffled card lead by Rampage and King Mo, and now the promotion will be waiting with baited breath to see whether enough people purchased the event to make it worth all the time, money and effort it’s cost them.
