Sports have seen its notorious cheating scandals. Who remembers "Spygate" from 2007 involving the Patriots, to the Steroid Scandal that surrounded Major League Baseball with Jose Canseco's published book "Juiced", The downfall of sprinters such as Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, to the constant accusations about Lance Armstrong's supposed cheating during 7 Tour De France wins that despite constant denial, just won't go away....
It appears that cheating isn't limited to those sports, as now its apparently crossed into the sport of Mixed Martial Arts. In an article on Yahoo!Sports released Monday, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson makes the accusation that his opponent at UFC 135 in Denver, Colorado next month, that being current 205 lb. kingpin Jon "Bones" Jones, allegedly has placed a mole at Jackson's camp in Denver.
Jackson goes onto say he allegedly suspected someone of pulling a Benedict Arnold in the days leading up to last year's UFC 114 unanimous decision loss to Rashad Evans. He says that during that fight, Evans repeatedly punched Jackson's knee, which is strange....considering Rampage is now claiming that he injured it during camp, and let nobody know about it.
“In all my years of fighting, I’d never been punched in the knee before and I never saw anyone punch someone in the knee,” Jackson is quoted as saying in the article.
Jackson states that he then last week claimed a injury about a hand to everybody in his camp...to see it where it would go. It eventually was relayed to UFC Matchmaker Joe Silva, who promptly called "Rampage's" manager, Anthony McGann whom revealed the source of this information : Malki Kawa, who happens to be Bones' manager.
In an followup article on MMAJunkie, Malki Kawa denies any spy exists and essentially says that Jackson is looking to "excuse an imminent loss".
Jackson's accusations are not to be taken lightly. Let's face it, like the Patriots had in that 2007 regular season, Jon Jones (essentially ignoring say 2 12-to-6 elbows on Matt Hamill's chin) is undefeated. Jones might be considered this Sport's Tom Brady to the sports Bill Belichick, which would be Greg Jackson. But while Jackson has been long under scrutiny for training fighters to be "tactical" and "boring" by everybody, from you MMArmaggedists to UFC president Dana White, his fighters have come under cheating clouds recently. Earlier, it was Nate Marquardt and the TPT saga, and now this.
But it was why those Patriots stayed undefeated why people refer to them as cheats. If Jones were to win, would we now consider him a cheat? And while it might be possible Jackson is telling the truth about the story, remember this :
This guy did follow up a unanimous decision loss to Forrest Griffin in 2008 by going off the deep end, only to turn it into a starring role in last year's summer blockbuster "The A-Team".
Hey, I'm just throwing it out there...
-In other news, re-signed Women's Strikeforce Champion Cris "Cyborg" Santos has been announced by Scott Coker as returning to action.....in December. MMAJunkie reported that it could be the previously unannounced December 17th event on Showtime, also rumored to feature a lightweight world title fight between Jorge Masvidal and Gilbert Melendez. So, with both title fights on the card, at least Santos' title fight will be worth watching.
-Junkie also reported that the UFC 134 prelim fights, highlighted by the most bizarre display ever in a fight by Rousimar Palhares' near first round KO of Jim Miller, netted 1.3 million viewers. This was despite the threat of electricity being wiped out due to Hurricane Irene, people still tuned in. Though I think it really has something to do with the UFC being shown on FOX in Brazil why the figure is so high.
-Speaking of everybody's near KO artist Rousimar Palhares, he said that Saturday night's fight he heard the words "Stop...Stop" from Jim Miller, this is according to Palhares' Trainer, Murilo Bustamante, in an article from ESPN.com/Sherdog published Sunday. Palhares' lame brain tactics cost him in a KO loss to Nate Marquardt. Now I don't know, but from where I watched the fight i didn't hear a thing. Maybe i'm deaf, the crowd was really loud, or Palhares just hears voices in his head. Very very strange stuff.
-and I know this is coming out of left field, but I got to give a shout out to everybody's favourite father figure of the '90s, Al Bundy. As various media outlets have informed us, Ed O'Neill, star of FOX's "Married with Children" and current star of ABC's "Modern Family", will be receiving a Star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame. Why does this have to do with MMA?
Well did you know O'Neill has his black belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu?
You didn't?
Well, now you know.
Questions? Comments? leave one at the bottom or email me at mmarmaggeddon@gmail.com You can also follow me on Twitter, at Twitter.com/MMArmaggedon
Until next time, fight fans!
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