I read an interesting article on UFC.com about Team Rampage’s thoughts on the upcoming Liddell Silva fight on December 29. I wanted to discuss the comments he made during the interview.

First of all let me just start off by saying that I like Quinton Rampage Jackson and I think he is a good fighter. But he is the last person I thought that would be making excuses for a fight. There is no one to blame for losing a fight except yourself.

Here is a short excerpt of his quotes during the interview.

Rampage: “That’s not the way it goes,” said Jackson. “I guarantee you that if I would have fought Silva both times in the UFC, I would have won.”

Interviewer: Because of the Octagon as opposed to the PRIDE ring?

Rampage: “Not the cage, the referees,” he said. “I guarantee I would have beaten him.”

This is what happened with the referees in their first meeting. After taking down Silva at the beginning of the first round and throwing a couple of body punches, Rampage got upset when the referee quickly stood them up and restarted the fighters in the center of the ring. Wanderlei then proceeded to throw vicious knees and kicks that quickly ended the fight a few minutes later.

Their second fight was similar with a questionable reset. Both fighter’s were actually issued yellow cards for inactivity on the ground in the first round. In the second round Silva rocked him with a couple of right hooks and ended it with a knee to the head. Rampage claims the right hook is what did it.

I can kind of see where he is coming from but there is no excuse for losing a fight. He was dominated in the stand up and he can’t say for sure that he would have kept Silva down if the ref didn’t reset the fighters. I think the only reason he lost those fights was because he got beat by the better man both nights. Silva was unstoppable back then and I don’t think it would have mattered either way.