Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Jackson stuns UFC, retires

Quinton Jackson has chosen acting over fighting, at least for now.

The former UFC light heavyweight champ announced his plans on his Web site and indicated he was disappointed with the UFC fans and the company itself, which wasn't thrilled that Jackson postponed a planned fight with Rashad Evans when he got the role of B.A. Baracus in the upcoming A-Team movie.

Like many fighters Jackson always wasn't thrilled with the way he was booked claiming he was never promoted as undisputed world champion when he beat former Pride FC champ Dan Henderson and he went into the Octagon with both Wanderlei Silva and Keith Jardine despite a painful jaw injury. Jackson also wasn't thrilled with a proposed rematch with Evans, preferring a title shot at
Lyoto Machida.

"I told them I wanted to fight Machida for the belt but [UFC president] Dana [White] told me if I coach TUF against Rashad that I could fight Machida afterwards cause this was a different type of ultimate fighter show they were doing," Evans wrote.

Evans claimed White changed his mind on the Machida fight and people began to think he was afraid of the champ. He also claimed that he asked White to move the Evans fight, which was scheduled for Jackson's hometown of Memphis, back one month when the acting role became a possibility.

"Dana went on the Internet and mocked me because of that and I still did nothing," Evans continued. "Dana and I finally talked and we made up and then after that he went back on the Internet and said some bullshit and he was talking bad about the movie when information is not even supposed to be released and talking about payments which is not even true could really hurt my future acting career, which could very well last longer than my fighting career.

"So I'm done fighting. I've been getting negative reviews from the dumb ass fans that don't pay my bills or put my kids through college. So I'm hanging it up. I'm gonna miss all my loyal fans but hopefully they'll follow me to my new career and I will gain more loyal fans along the way. And all you hater fans out there can kiss my big black hairy ass and anybody that don't like what I just said can come try and kick my ass."

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