Quinton “Rampage” Jackson Pulling Out Of UFC 107 Means The UFC Can’t Counter-Program Fedor On CBS
The UFC has a history of counter-programming their competition, that is, putting on their own show opposite the competition’s. When Affliction debuted on July 19, 2008 headlined by Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia on pay-per-view, the UFC threw together a full night of fights on Spike including Anderson Silva’s light heavyweight debut. Most recently they aired bouts from UFC 100 on Spike only a month after the event, to counter Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg. It stood to reason they would try to do something along those line when Emelianenko makes his Strikeforce debut, in fact UFC president Dana White had already said publicly that they had in the works a third November event to be headlined by BJ Penn vs. Diego Sanchez, and hinted that it would air on network television. That bout eventually landed on UFC 107 in December instead, replacing the scheduled headliner of Quinton “Rampage” Jackson vs. “Sugar” Rashad Evans, and MMAJunkie found out why from White himself:
“Thanks to [expletive] B.A. Baracus, I couldn’t [expletive] pull it off,” White said. “B.A. [expletive] me. The collateral damage that was done by him doing this thing was unbelievable.”
“You have no idea how much collateral damage was done by [Jackson] pulling out of this thing. It literally screwed up the rest of our year. We’ve got B.J. Penn fighting in Memphis, you know what I mean?”
“What happens is, [Jackson] calls up and says he’s doing this movie. I said, ‘No, you’re not. You’re going to fight Rashad in December. You do whatever you want to do after this fight. You want to retire and become an actor? You want to join the monastery? I don’t care what you do after this fight, but ‘Rampage,’ you’re going to fight this fight.’
“He said, ‘OK.’ Then he had his manager fly in from England and met me at the hangar before I was leaving to go out of town to tell me that he wasn’t going to (fight Evans). [Rampage] and I haven’t talked since.”
White and Jackson will hopefully settle their differences, and we will get to see Jackson and Evans inside the Octagon in the near future. However, the ripple effect caused by one man pulling out of a fight shows how fragile the plans for a major MMA promotion can be.
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I’m sure that Zuffa will have Spike throw something on to bleed off what few MMA fans won’t be eyeballing CBS that night.
After thinking about this, I think that honestly it almost makes the UFC look smalltime by counter-programming.
I mean seriously, how was the UFC going to be hurt by Strikeforce’s chick fight?
By most reckonings the UFC is worth anywhere between a quarter and a half billion dollars, and they’re threatened by Ken Shamrock and Kimbo Slice on CBS, which of course never happened and self-destructed that promotion.
Sure, put up some token counter-programming, but to force a quality card trying to counter Fedor, who the bulk of North American MMA fans consider little more than an urban fight legend, and Brett Rogers, a Clubber Lang-type the bulk of North American MMA fans probably haven’t heard of, seems wasteful to me, and a bit like playing down to the level of your competition.
I’m no fan of M-1 Global, or Fedor for that matter, but for Strikeforce’s sake, and the sports, I hope they do well on CBS, because if Strikeforce can do well on network TV with Fedor and Rogers, imagine the numbers the UFC could bag with fighters the bulk of North American MMA fans actually recognize and care about…
Some “chick fight” huh, interesting to see you say thay almost a million viewers is something to baulk at I guess!
With a card that will have Fedor on it, Brett Rogers whom the cbs crowd is familiar with already, Gergard Mousasi is rumored, Cris Cyborg is rumored, jake Shields v Mayhem Miller is rumored, ya I would want to counter program that too, and he will. He will throw a replay of something or make a marathon of UFC on SPIKE all day on saturday he will do something
Strikeforce is worth money as my friend and they have alligned themselves with FEG which is going to make 2010 an interesting year forsure, now I’m no fan of M~1 Global but the only co promotion that M 1 does with Strikeforce is well when Fedor fights and that contract is only a year or 3 fights in lenght not every event Strikeforce does has dealings with M~1
My feelings for M-1 Global and Fedor aside, the better Strikeforce does the happier I’ll be…
Shields and Mayhem both have garnered some strong star power of their own recently as well. Mayhem being the host of an MTV show can’t be hurting his popularity, and Jake Shields has already appeared on said show three times in 10 episodes. The ratings for the CBS show will be strong, for sure.
In some aspects I think it better for the UFC that this didn’t work out. Even to this day, there are only a limited number of MMA fans in the US, and to have them split between UFC and Strikeforce on network TV may have gone poorly for MMA on network TV in general.
Without counter-programming, the UFC could establish a profit/ratings benchmark for network TV programs. Any network UFC event would surely do as well, if not, better than any network Strikeforce event.
However, allowing the sun to shine on the dog’s arse that is Strikeforce, is not a favorable option for Dana et al.
thats a weight off rashad’s back. he got knocked out by machida! it was gonna be even worse if rampage was in there!
Yeah,Rampage really screwed things up with this acting thing.No doubt Dana is pissed after all the hype and advertising for TUF and it’s coaches and setting up the fight in Memphis.Really don’t understand Rampage’ choice cause I heard Dana say that he is giving up literally millions of dollars to do this movie and I doubt he’s making that kind of money doing the movie.And like Dana said,I don’t think Rampage is going to become a movie star from saying ‘I pity the fool’.I also don’t think that the UFC really has to counter-program against Strikeforce,but I’m sure they will come up with something.
come on dude it’s probably a boy hood dream for him to play Mr T. God i’m white and i wont to play Mr T, it’s a ones in a life time sort of thing. And after we can still watch him kick retards head in. ;0P
Not if Dana’s as pissed as he sounds. Jackson may have just found himself on the bottom of the title shot heap. That’s what I’d do if an employee screwed me over.
… that’s what I would do to a guy who ducked a title shot to fight some guy he dislikes and the ducks that fight too.
Can Rampage show that he is less interested in being a champ?
Its a dream to play Mr. T? Please.
Kind of find it strange that Dana took this shot from his “friend” and said he doesn’t plan to cut him or make him pay for it. As for Rampage possibly living out a childhood dream, I guess thats cool, but to fxck your friend over and the company you work for who has helped you in innumerable ways in the process? Pretty damm slimy if you ask me, much like the late n great Rodney Dangerfield, Rampage gets NO RESPECT from me.
Fact of the matter is, Jackson turned down a title fight with Machida so that he could coach on TUF 10 vs Rashad Evans. As part of this deal there should have been something in the contract that stipulated a must fight for the coaches at the end of the season within a given time frame.
It just seems pointless that this fight between the coaches won’t take place till several months after the show ends. Judging from episode one and the previews for episode two, this ENTIRE season is about building up the feud between Rashad and Rampage, and less on the fighters (minus Kimbo). So for this fight not to happen when it is suppose to just makes no sense at all.
It seems as though with turning down the Machida fight to coach on TUF and now turning down the Rashad fight to star in a movie role, Quinton Rampage Jackson has no interest in getting into the octagon anytime soon, and would rather make money by being a Hollywood star and not as a mixed martial artist.
This is the biggest problem with the sport. The big name fighters and champions pick and choose their fights and when they want to fight and the UFC has absolutely zero control over it. Dana has done a lot for Rampage over the past couple years and it amazes me that Jackson would screw Dana and the UFC over like this. Personally I am starting to think he just doesn’t want to get his butt kicked by either Machida or Rashad.
I bet Rampage is ducking after TUF turns out to be very 1 sided and Rashad’s HWs crush Rampage’s in landslide victories.
I think I could be a better corner than Rampage. Maybe something like “SPRAWL” would have been better than “HE IS DOING IT AGAIN”. He could have yelled “Eat banannas for breakfast it will help prevent cramps” in the middle of that fight and been more helpful than he was.
Now that I think about it, maybe Jackson is more like Mr. T than a fighter. Either way, I pitty the fool.
Ya Rampage is really showing some disrespect here. If it wasn’t for Dana covering his as* after the road rage incident, he’d be out of a job right now, forget about playing Clubber Lang or whoever he’s playing. Dana literally bailed him out and vouched for him with all that dehydration crap….. and what fighters go through…etc etc
Now I hear Rampage gets his manager to meet with Dana, that’s too bad.
lol, Clubber Lang. i think that quinton knows that he has a real chance to get KTFO’d in this fight or against Machida, which makes him less enthused to fight either guy. not saying that hes running scared, just aware that he could have his legacy more tarnished then it already is.
digyourownhole, i was thinking the same thing. this season can likely be a repeat of season 7 or whatever crappy season, and this can only be foreseen in that clip of him tearing that door apart. and when he was talking $h!t to rashad he was saying that he doesnt get mad.
“im gunna bust you up rocky”
This is what you will hear when Dana don’t get his own way… [Whining] If he really needed this fight to happen, like he did, then why not come out of your buddy’s “Lerenzo” pocket an offer more money since you already know this fight is going to make you guy’s big bucks? The way the world runs is by MONEY and it speaks very loudly. If I know Dana once you pretty much “don’t give the baby his own way” he can turn on you fast. Just ask Fitch. I’m sure he won’t be putting Rampage on the undercard any time soon though.
I would say that there is probably more to this Rampage-UFC-movie thing than we’re aware of right now, and maybe we should reserve final judgements until we have all the facts.
Just as idea…
yea…i think Rampage was born to play Mr. T in an A-Team remake. You can tell by Rampage’s often crazy thought process and how he acts that he is more of a kid with ADD than a professional fighter that only dreams of holding the title.
Dana White is pissed, but he’s not going to burn bridges with Rampage.
Dammnn Rampage why are you fu*kin shhit up?
Bad move for Rampage, bad bad move dude, you will see when you become yesterdays Contender who passed up his shot at the title.
Also, it would be one thing for someone who was in a division without contenders to do something like this, but a fighter in the UFC’s 205 division?!?!
These days you can’t go to a UFC fanfest without bumping into 3 different 205 contenders and/or former champions.
Maybe Rampage is getting bad advice again or something…
I knew Rampage would be a little scary girl and not want to get beat the f up by Rashad.
Umm… well, I’m tempted to call that bashing, but I’ll let it slide this time.
A ton of back and forth has been said on here, and meanwhile there hasn’t been one word reported out of Rampage’s mouth. I don’t think it will change too much as I personally disagree with his choice, but who knows what the “full” story is.
The UFC has to start writing this type of stuff into the fighters contract. I think they have to do just like the NFL and NBA do. Those major league organizations and their respective teams stipulate in their players contract that they can’t do stuff like this. I think Dana has to do the same. Once they started the filming of the new TUF 10, it should have be stated in the contract.
And I’m with Dana white on this one, I like rampage. He is funny as hell but what a bonehead move, man. He’s screwing the fans out of watching him fight Evans to go make some movie that prolly won’t even be a #1 film. Rampage has PPV money written into his contract so I don’t get it.
Meh. Maybe it was his dream to be Mr. T but sometimes you have to be a man and recognize your responsibilities and he had a responibility to the UFC and he screwed them all up now.