Rampage Jackson has admitted that his descent from the top of the MMA world began when he started to believe his own hype.
The legendary UFC light-heavyweight champion famously dethroned Chuck Liddell in May 2007, but only defended the belt once before Forrest Griffin took the belt from him. He did climb back to a shot at gold in 2011 against Jon Jones, but lost that effort and struggled for form ever since.
During an impassioned speech to rising UFC welterweight Bryan Battle, he warned that it is vitally important to maintain a high level of training. Battle missed weight for his last fight at UFC 310, after coming back quickly from a career-defining win in Paris a few months prior.
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Rampage Jackson warns Bryan Battle how his career downfall began
Battle managed to continue his winning UFC run at UFC 310, scraping out a split decision against Randy Brown. But the performance worried Rampage Jackson and Luke Rockhold, who welcomed him on to their Jaxxon podcast this week.
“Battle, don’t get complacent with the scales,” he told the welterweight, who used MMA as an outlet to lose over 100lb and become a top athlete. “Always push yourself harder even if you outgrow your teammates and coaches don’t feel bad.
“I’m going to tell you something, with your personality and your skills you can be a big star in the UFC and there’s not that many stars. It could be your time soon, right? So make sure you train really hard, I’m talking about take it super serious.
“I don’t care if your friends tell you ‘oh you think you’re this’. F*** that, you’ve got to be selfish for a little while because father time is undefeated and it’s going to be a short window. I’m telling you, keep honing in on your skills.
“Don’t get complacent because that happens to the best of us, it happened to me. I was like ‘my s*** don’t stink,’ and I stopped training as hard. I did. I was a big star, and I stopped training as hard like ‘f*** it’. Bro, you could be a big star.”
Luke Rockhold also informs Bryan Battle of the dangers of missing weight
Rockhold also made his feelings clear, letting Battle know that he can’t allow himself to become a fighter known for struggling to make weight. He noted that everyone is given one hall pass, but that he has to get more serious about the weight in order to reach the top of the sport.
“You’re on the verge of cracking that top 15, top 10 and you want to be on your s***,” Rockhold told Battle. “I mean, respect yourself and s*** will come back, you can rise faster.”
Battle is currently on a four-win run, save for a No Contest in the middle for an illegal eye poke. He has lost just once under the UFC banner, and his infamous promo after UFC Paris catapulted him into an even bigger tier of star power.