Ahead of the biggest fight of his UFC career against Jon Jones, Rampage Jackson bizarrely trained for eye-pokes during his fight camp.
Jon Jones has received a lot of criticism recently for continuing to delay a potential heavyweight title unification fight against Tom Aspinall, resulting in fans labeling him a ‘duck’.
With the continuous delays, Aspinall has claimed that he is no longer interested in fighting Jones, potentially leading to another interim title defense.
And with that, thousands of fans have begun to sign a petition to get ‘Bones’ stripped of his heavyweight title.
Rampage Jackson trained for eye-pokes ahead of his fight against Jones
Despite having somewhat tarnished a part of his legacy over the last few years, Jones will still go down as the greatest fighter of all time because of his accolades and the names on his record.
Midway through his career, the 37-year-old began to garner a reputation for being a dirty fighter. So much so that his former opponent Rampage Jackson labeled him ‘the dirtiest fighter ever’.
Rampage Jackson explained how Jones’ oblique kick to the knee that he utilized throughout his career is a dirty move, along with poking his opponents in the eye.
Jackson has revealed that ahead of their UFC light heavyweight title fight in 2011, he trained for eye-pokes throughout his fight camp.
“Jon Jones’ b—- ass (poked my eye),” he began to explain on his recent podcast episode.
“I came into the fight with an eye-poke injury because we were training for that s—. I was fighting a guy who was known for eye-poking, so (I had to prepare). I brought in this tall ass (training partner),” he continued.
“So you let the f—– poke you in the eye?” Henry Cejudo, who was the guest on his podcast, asked.
“In training? I was trying to get away from it, and he got me one time, yeah, I trained for it. Bro, I was fighting for the belt. I trained my ass off for that fight, against Jon Jones. I trained my ass off, that’s how confident I was that I was gonna win, I did everything.
“But where I messed up, I didn’t have a really tall guy with long limbs to do jiu-jitsu with… But he was poking me, he was fighting me like this (fingers out),” Rampage continued.
Jones went on to submit Rampage Jackson in round four
As Jackson mentioned, his biggest mistake was not being fully prepared for ‘Bones’ jiu-jitsu skill, and that led to a fourth-round submission loss.
Unfortunately, the fan favorite went on to lose his next two fights and subsequently signed with Bellator, where he looked to get his career back on track.