UFC
"Rampage" Jackson blames injury for missing weight for UFC 144; calls out Rich Franklin after critique
Feb 25, 2012 - 1:45:29 PM "Rampage" Jackson blames injury for missing weight for UFC 144; calls out Rich Franklin after critique

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

A feud may be brewing between Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Rich Franklin after the weigh-in proceedings for UFC 144 in Japan. Jackson missed weight by six pounds for his fight with Ryan Bader in tonight's co-main event, leading Franklin - serving as a guest analyst on Fuel TV's coverage of the weigh-ins - to question just how seriously Jackson took his training for this fight.

That criticism didn't sit well with Jackson, who was interviewed by Ariel Helwani on the Fuel TV broadcast shortly thereafter. Jackson made it very clear he's not a fan of people questioning his efforts into his fights.

"Rich Franklin needs to watch his mouth before I smack him the next time I see him," Jackson said. "He a fighter the same way I'm a fighter, he should watch what he say. You don't question if a fighter is taking his fight serious or not. I'm a fighter, I take all my fights serious and I'm tired of people saying that. I get ups and downs in my fight career just like everyone else, but I'm still here.

"I've been around eleven years but I'm still here. I take all my fights seriously and I'm tired of people questioning me. I haven't backed out of a fight yet due to injury. I won some fights injured and I lost some fights injured. That's just me, I'm the one that gotta answer to it at the end of the day."

Jackson explained that an injury in training camp didn't allow him to run for a time and work off as much of the weight as he would have liked. He said he tried his best to make the cut but ultimately he just couldn't get to the allowable 206 lbs.

"I wasn't going to say anything," Jackson said of the injury. "I thought I was going to make the weight, but I got injured in my camp [and] that kept me from doing a lot of running. But I didn't want to miss this fight because it's so important to me and I fought so hard to get it and I said 'forget it, I'm just gonna man up and make the fight.'"

"I kept training in other ways, I just couldn't get my road work in in a lot of ways. Then I healed up and could get my roadwork in but it was too late. I started cutting weight and it was a lot of weight to cut. I cut 21 pounds. I just couldn't get the last six. I tried my best, it's kind of difficult [when you've got to] weigh in earlier and I kind of underestimated the time. I woke up at three o'clock this morning cutting weight and I cut everything I had."

Penick's Analysis: Well, he claims that the injury he had suffered has healed; but even if it has, he didn't look in as good of shape as he has in his past few fights, and there's going to be some part of his game that is certainly affected by this. The size issue isn't going to be a major factor, because Bader's not a small guy at all and they'll both rehydrate to a similar size, but Rampage cost himself some money by letting himself get that far up in weight regardless of the injury. Putting himself in a position to cut that much weight wasn't good, and we'll see tonight whether it has a negative effect on him.