Quinton Jackson is likely a sure-fire Hall of Famer, but if Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) officials ever came knocking at his door to bestow the honor upon him, he wouldn’t exactly be jumping for joy to greet them.
Unless a big check comes with it ...
According to the former UFC Light Heavyweight champion, he never got into the sport to be well-known around the world. On the contrary, he did it all for the money. That’s the reason he says instead of the promotion honoring him with a spot in the Hall of Fame, he would prefer if Dana White and Co. cut a check for all of his sacrifices.
“No, f—k them. I don’t fight for no Hall of Fame. What do you get for being in the Hall of Fame?” Jackson questioned during a recent interview on The MMA Hour (via MMA Fighting).
“I say, ‘Honor me with a f—king check. MMA fighters, we’re not like baseball players, we’re not like football players, we don’t get no pension or nothing like that. Those guys get in the Hall of Fame, they’ve got pensions and all that s—t. Honor me with a check. I got a lot of injuries and pain for making the UFC a lot of money and selling a lot of pay-per-views, selling a lot of tickets. What do I give a f—k about being in the Hall of Fame? To be famous? I didn’t fight to be famous.”
Jackson had a lengthy run with the promotion, competing 12 times in a five-year run, winning the 205-pound strap in just his second fight by knocking out then-UFC posterboy, Chuck Liddell.
He eventually dropped the title to Forrest Griffin and came up short in his bid to reclaim it against Jon Jones. The loss to “Bones” was the start of a three-fight losing streak inside the Octagon, which eventually prompted him to sign with Bellator MMA in 2013.
And even though he did have to return to UFC’s cage for one more fight because of legal issues, he returned to Bellator with mixed results, winning the Bellator Season 10 tournament before losing three of his last four bouts.
Jackson has long had a love-hate relationship with UFC, and went on to reveal instances in which the company cost him opportunities to make money outside of the cage due to what he called “shady” dealings.
“I don’t know if I say this, I’ll get sued by UFC, but all I can say is, after I did the A-Team, some organizations made it really hard for me to do other movies,” Jackson said. “That’s all I can put out there. I can say I signed with one of the biggest agencies in Hollywood, and they didn’t do sh*t for me, and I felt like it was on purpose. Actually, I know it was on purpose because now they own UFC,” he said in references to Endeavor, formerly known as WME.
“That’s why [after] the A-Team, you didn’t see me in nothing else big. A lot of things left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m walking up to UFC, and I’m getting ready to fight, and I got a big Reebok contract, and then UFC’s like, ‘Oh, we don’t know Reebok. You can’t have Reebok.’ Then, next thing you know, UFC’s got a big Reebok contract.
“Then I’m like, man, what the f—k? Now, where’s Reebok and UFC, where’s that relationship at now? Both of them, f—king shady on that deal. That left a bad taste in my mouth, and that’s why I left the UFC, and then UFC told everybody that I retired, so everybody thought I was retired. I went to Bellator, and most of the fans that didn’t decide to follow me on social media actually thought I retired.”
“Rampage” hasn’t competed since losing to Fedor Emelianenko in 2019 in a collaboration event between Bellator and RIZIN. The former hard-hitting champion is in talks to return to action in a boxing match against Shannon Briggs.
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