Greg Jackson trained fighters have started to carry with them a bit of a stigma. To many fans, Jackson’s ability to get some (but certainly not all) of his fighters to stick to strict gameplans that emphasize winning over excitement is more curse than blessing for the sport. In a recent interview with MMA Mania, Jackson discussed exactly that criticism:
I’m not sure. (why game plans are criticized) I will be honest, there have been fights that we have won, that I was like, “Oh man, this one is going to be all over the news.” But no one says a word. The Carlos Condit fight was not that controversial. We out struck him, landed more power shots and way more strikes. We had complete Octagon control, we decided when and where the exchanges were going to happen and if we didn’t like it, we got away and started again, so you can’t really make a case for him (Diaz) doing more damage because we did more damage and you can’t make a case for him controlling the fight because we controlled it. So that criticism doesn’t bother me that much because It was just more of people’s disappointment wanting to see two fighters stand there and swing and last man standing wins. But, you know, fighting is about hitting and not getting hit. We hit him a lot more and we didn’t get hit. So I don’t feel bad about that one. Listen, there have been times in my 18 years of doing this where I’m like, “How did we win that one?” And I’m like, “What, no one got mad?” No one says a word. A lot of people were just disappointed because a lot of people just wanted Nick to win and because of Nick’s style. It is just part of the territory.
There’s more in the interview at Mania, with Jackson talking about Nick Diaz’s drug test, having fighters from his camp fight each other and the conflict in deciding if he can/should corner Jon Jones against Rashad Evans.