Poisoned By PRIDE?
Quinton Jackson has been in the game for a long time. When “Rampage” fought Japanese MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba way back in July 2001, however, Jackson was just 23 years old with a dozen professional bouts to his name. He was still a relative nobody, whereas Sakuraba was already “The Gracie Hunter,” a UFC tournament […]
TOKYO, JAPAN - NOVEMBER 09: Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson reacts after a victory against Chuck Liddell inside the Tokyo Dome on November 9, 2003 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Zuffa LLC) Quinton Jackson has been in the game for a long time. When “Rampage” fought Japanese MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba way back in July 2001, however, Jackson was just 23 years old with a dozen professional bouts to his name.
He was still a relative nobody, whereas Sakuraba was already “The Gracie Hunter,” a UFC tournament winner with victories over multiple top talents like champions Royce Gracie, Carlos Newton, and Vitor Belfort. Sakuraba was also a massive star in Japan, while Jackson was making his first trip to “The Land of the Rising Sun” for his PRIDE FC debut. In a recent appearance on the Coach Tim Welch’s Red Hawk Recap podcast, Jackson explains why PRIDE wanted him to lose, bullied him into cutting weight needlessly, and allegedly poisoned him to boot!
“My worst [weight] cut was when I had to fight Sakuraba. There were no weight classes, but they made me lose 27 pounds and gave me three hours to do it,” Jackson said (via Curtis Calhoun ). “They wanted me to do it the day of the fight, but you can’t do that.
They wanted me to be like, really weak. I’ll say this right now: f—k PRIDE FC because of the way they treated me. I know people may not believe me, but I really do think they poisoned me or something.