Profile of Quinton Jackson on Famous Like Me

Quinton Jackson
Statistics
Nickname	Rampage
Height	6 ft 1 in (185 cm)
Weight	205 lb (93 kg)
Born	June 20, 1978
Fighting out of	Irvine, California
Town of birth	Memphis, Tennessee
Fighting style	Wrestling
Mixed martial arts record
Wins	22
Losses	6
Draws	0

Hailing from Memphis, Tennessee, USA, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (born June 20th, 1978) had his first taste of combat sport as a wrestler for Raleigh Egypt High School where his successful career was punctuated by All-State honors. Originally, Jackson had intended on pursuing a career in professional wrestling upon finishing high school, but ultimately ended up extending his amateur career in junior college before discovering mixed martial arts. Impressed by the success of other wrestlers in MMA, Jackson decided to try his own hand at the budding sport. Jackson built up an impressive record of 11 wins and 1 loss fighting for a variety of smaller scale American promotions, including King of the Cage, Gladiator Challenge and Dangerzone.

Pride Career

However, it was not upon native soil but rather in Japan's Pride Fighting Championships that he ultimately rose to fame in the mixed martial arts world. Coming into the Japanese federation as a hitherto unknown quantity fighting against their flagship athlete and fellow ex-wrestler Kazushi Sakuraba at Pride 15, Jackson astounded audiences by taking the fight to Sakuraba in what is widely recognized as one of the sports' most exciting contests. Though taken down repeatedly by the smaller Sakuraba's expertly applied low single-leg, Jackson, once on the canvas, refused to be controlled. Using his wrestling ability and raw strength to fight off numerous fluidly applied joint-lock and choke attempts from Sakuraba, Jackson brought the fight back to standing where he mauled Sakuraba with a number of high elevation slams. Though in the end Jackson succumbed to a rear-naked choke from Sakuraba, his performance opened up the eyes of both the Pride’s fan base and its executive office.

After besting Japanese pro-wrestler Alexander Otsuka in a fight for the Battle Arts promotion, he was invited back for Pride 17, where Jackson scored a KO over Otsuka’s stable mate, Yuki Ishikawa. Jackson was disqualified for an accidental low blow in his next Pride appearance against Daijiro Matsui, but with a win in Pride 20 over Masaaki Satake he initiated a five-fight winning streak in high profile Pride contests which took him all the way to the finals of Pride’s 205-pound Grand Prix tournament, where after defeating Chuck Liddell by TKO in the semi-finals, he fell to Wanderlei Silva.

In his past three matches, Jackson lost to Wanderlei's team mate, Mauricio Rua in the opening round of the 2005 Pride Grand Prix tournament. The loss followed a victory over Ricardo Arona, a second defeat to Wanderlei Silva, and a decision victory over Murilo Rua.

Out-of-Ring Life

Outside of the ring, Quinton Jackson enjoys playing video games and listening to music; Quinton recorded some rap songs before his conversion to Christianity (see below), but he has since expressed interest in redoing the tracks before releasing them, as the original recordings have explicit language that Jackson no longer wishes to be associated with.

Also well known is Quinton's change to born-again Christianity. This apparently occurred sometime after his successful fight with Ricardo Arona (September, 2004). An article written by Sherdog's Josh Gross describes Jackson's experience: "In the middle of a late-summer night Jackson and his kindergarten-age son D’Angelo woke up to separate, though eerily similar dreams. Both were shaken, so much so that at 4 a.m. they had to get out of their apartment. To Jackson, it was a sign. 'You know how girls cry when they’re happy?' he said. 'That’s how I was. I think I felt Jesus' love. I don’t know. I automatically knew everything after I was born again.'" Since his religious change, Quinton has fought four matches and suffered two losses. Some critics blame his Christian status for the losses, but Quinton contests that a change in pre-fight training has been the factor in his recent defeats.

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson resides in Irvine, CA with his wife Yuki Jackson and has one child, D'Angelo (from a previous relationship), with another expected.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Quinton Jackson