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“I don’t know how much I ever loved the fight game, to be honest. Most fighters these days join fighting because they became a fan of it. When I started I wasn’t a fan of it — I’ve been a fighter my whole life. I just thought it was a blessing that God could give me something I could make money doing. When I was a kid I got tired of fighting. I didn’t want to be a fighter anymore. But I was just good at it. It was just something that was in my blood. Some people are fighters…I like it a lot less than I used to. It’s no secret, everybody knows about the falling out I had with the UFC, and it’s just unfortunate that they’re trying to blame me for doing this movie…They’ve said some things and done some things I don’t agree with — that’s not the way I do business. I’m a loyal person so I take care of people who take care of me, but people who don’t take care of me, I don’t take care of them. So I’m done with the UFC. They can’t ask me for anymore favors. Nothing. I just want to finish my contract and get out of there, do my own thing. Dana lied to me. He told me I didn’t have to fight Rashad, I could fight Machida. I did the show and then after that he told me I had to fight Rashad.”

—Rampage Jackson in an interview with Fighter’s Only, transcript via Fanhouse, saying he’s done with the UFC when his contract is up

If you’ve been following Rampage Jackson’s UFC career, especially in the last year or so, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s really not anything he hasn’t said in different words already, but it is rather odd to hear him say he thought he could fight Machida after the show. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, especially when you look back to what he said when TUF 10 was announced.

Jackson said he was given a choice of who he wanted to fight and picked Evans over the title shot:

“I had my mind set to fight Evans,” said Jackson. “I was actually there coaching (at UFC 98) trying to get him to win the fight. I want Evans he got in my face (at UFC 96), right after my fight. That was the wrong time to get in my face.”

Scratching your head? Yeah, me too. Was Rampage told what to tell the media back then? Was the entire Rampage-Rashad rivalry fabricated? I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound like the beef between Rampage, Dana and the UFC is over.

Tickets for UFC 113 are set to go on sale next week.

UFC 113 is scheduled to take place at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Saturday, May 8. The light heavyweight title fight rematch between champ Lyoto Machida and challenger Mauricio “Shogun” Rua will headline.

Ticket info below.

• UFC Fight Club Presale: Thursday, February 18
• UFC Newsletter Presale: Friday, February 19
• Public On-Sale Date: Saturday, February 20

Tickets will be priced from $50-$600. They can be purchased through Bell Centre box office by phone at (514) 790-2525 / 1-877-668-8269 or at Geg.ca. UFC Fight Club members and newsletter subscribers will be able to purchase tickets through UFC.com. Tickets are also expected to be available through Stubhub. Stubhub is a secondary ticket market where you can find the hard-to-find seats even when the event is “sold-out.”

The latest UFC 113 fight card and event info can be found in our fight cards section.

“I just spoke with him and he’s already started hitting pads and hitting mits, and he says his hand feels great…Before even the Rashad fight it was bothering him, and in between the Rashad and Shogun fights he went to a specialist down in Brazil. The specialist kind of pointed out the problems with it…He had that mentality the show must go on. He just kind of roughed through it, but he said that this last training camp leading up to the Shogun fight there were a lot of times where he had problems. It would be hurting during training when he hit, and once he went to the specialist here they looked at it and they took care of it…There were actually four parts on his hand, some bone spurs that they needed to take out of there. They actually found a little bone fragment in there too.”

—Lyoto Machida’s manager, Ed Soares, confirming with MMA Weekly that the UFC light heavyweight champ’s hand is healed

Good to hear Lyoto is back to 100%. Hopefully Machida and Shogun show up at UFC 113 as injury-free as possible. We need a definitive conclusion from the rematch, not more questions.

Image via CombatLifestyle.com

The UFC’s promos are usually pretty solid. Nothing spectacular, but they’re consistent and they work. Still, when I see promos like this one made by socawarrior, I can’t help but wonder if the UFC with their millions of dollars could produce something a little more epic for their big fights. Check out the promo above and tell me that doesn’t get your blood pumping for the Machida-Shogun rematch.

There is only one champion, so I believe this fight must happen. It’s a professional issue, and I believe they can fight. Deep down, everyone wants to know who is strongest. Friendship is friendship, but they’re not amateurs. The eventual winner isn’t my concern. What matters to me is how they win, and their strategy. This would be a mental battle.

—Lyoto Machida’s father, Yoshizo Machida, telling PVT Mag, via BE, a fight between his son and Anderson Silva must happen

I think Yoshizo Machida just became Dana White’s new favorite person. While we’ve yet to see a major fight between two teammates, Dana has been adamant that team unity shouldn’t and won’t get in the way of making big fights in the UFC. In this particular instance, Lyoto Machida and Anderson Silva have publicly stated they will never fight each other, however it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that Yoshizo could convince his son otherwise. As for Anderson, well, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in fighting anyone in the weight classes he competes in these days, but his next opponent, Vitor Belfort, has spent a little time training with Lyoto’s camp recently, so maybe that would be enough to convince him to accept the fight if it the timing’s ever right.

Of course, if Shogun Rua defeats Machida in their rematch at UFC 113, this all becomes a moot point. It’s a very real possibility that Machida’s father seems to realize. He admits Shogun was able to find and exploit Lyoto’s weaknesses in their first meeting.

A vital part of Lyoto’s game, since his power comes from the legs, and Shogun killed his leg. At any rate, the experience was good for us, since we’d never dealt with adversity. Karate also has its weaknesses, but no one had seen them up until now. Shogun exploited them, and deserves congratulations. That’s exactly what I told him after the fight when he was crying, pissed that he didn’t win. Lyoto did his weight training and is a very strong fighter. A different fighter would’ve gone down in the third round.

Had Shogun fought as he normally does, with his arms, Lyoto would’ve knocked him out in the first or second round. We did not expect him to kick that much and neglected the karate defense, which is different from the muay thai defense. Before the kick, you move up and stop the attack. We already planned a different strategy for next time, studying everything.

There’s no question Lyoto will be better prepared to deal with Shogun’s leg kicks in the rematch, but the question is, will Shogun and his team come up with a new strategy to throw Machida off his game once again? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out.

Image via Sherdog

For the most part, we all have a pretty good idea about who the UFC’s top draws are. But it’s also nice to see the data which is exactly what the fine folks at MMA Payout compiled.

K-1 is in a giving mood this holiday season. They’ve uploaded a handful of their old fights including Brock Lesnar’s MMA debut at Dynamite!! USA 2007, Lyoto Machida vs. BJ Penn, Renzo Gracie vs. BJ Penn and Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Royce Gracie II. Several more on K-1’s YouTube Channel. Enjoy!

Lyoto Machida’s victory over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua was easily one of the most, if not the most, controversial decision of the year. Seemingly everyone who watched it live thought Shogun slayed the Dragon at UFC 104 except for the three people whose opinions actually counted for the official record. Well, make that two people because Nelson “Doc” Hamilton now realizes he made a mistake giving Machida round four.