‘Rampage’ accuses Jones camp of spying

Quote :

Quinton “Rampage” Jackson’s hands are not injured, haven’t been injured and won’t impact him in his bout for the light heavyweight title at UFC 135 on Sept. 24 in Denver against champion Jon Jones.

But there was enough discussion of the state of Jackson’s hands that it has led the former champion to suspect he has a spy in his midst.

Spygate has come to the UFC.

Jackson said in an interview with Yahoo! Sports on Monday that he made up a story about having a hand injury last week. Yet, four hours after he mentioned the story in his gym, he said his manager received a call from UFC matchmaker Joe Silva asking about it.

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Quinton Jackson (L) says someone in his camp gave Rashad Evans details about an injured knee before their fight. Now he says a spy is leaking info to Jon Jones.
(Getty Images)
Jackson said he first became wary about a spy in his camp during the days prior to his May 29, 2010, fight at UFC 114 in Las Vegas with Rashad Evans. He said he injured his knee in training, but kept it quiet and let no one know. He was pleased when the injury never found its way into the media.

Yet, Jackson said that during the fight, Evans punched him repeatedly on the injured knee.

“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 said.

He said that made him wary that someone in his camp had been disloyal. But it wasn’t until recently, when he received a message from a fan on Twitter telling him that Jones had a spy in Jackson’s camp, that he began to consider it a possibility. It prompted him to make up the story about the injured hand to see where it would go.

Jackson said that four hours after he first made mention of the supposed injury, Silva, who was attending UFC 134 in Brazil, called his manager, Anthony McGann, to inquire. When McGann assured Silva that Jackson was not injured, he asked where Silva had heard the information.

To Jackson, the response was predictable: Silva said he had gotten a call from Jones’ manager Malki Kawa.

[ Miss UFC 134? Get the replay]

“One of my friends was talking to Jon Jones’ manager recently, and Jon Jones’ manager was saying that he knows everything that is going on in our camp,” Jackson said. “He said he had spies in our camp and he knew everything that was going on. That got me thinking.

“How did he know about my hand injury that fast? It wasn’t on the Internet, and yet he knew about my hand injury right away. The UFC people were in Brazil, which is why it probably took them four hours to call me. That shows me two things: They have spies in my camp, one, and two, they’re dumb as hell, because they didn’t know how to use the information correctly and to wait. He called right away, running to Joe Silva. Joe Silva called my manager right away.”

Jackson said he was bothered by it because he said he doesn’t operate that way and doesn’t try to seek out information about any opponent.

“I don’t care what Jon Jones is doing, and I don’t care what his game plan is,” the former UFC light heavyweight champion said. “I have zero care. I still have the honor of a fighter and going into battle the right way, not spying on my opponent. I’m not scared about my opponent, asking a lot of questions or worrying about what he’s doing. I don’t even watch film.”

Kawa vehemently denied having a spy in Jackson’s camp, but admitted he called Silva to inquire. Kawa said he had seen a report on Twitter that Jackson was injured, which prompted his call to Silva.

But Kawa was adamant that he was not spying on Jackson, and that the publication of such a report would only negatively impact Jones.

“I promise to God, I have no spy in that camp,” Kawa said. “It’s completely and totally untrue. There is nothing to it at all. It’s funny he said that, though, because we’ve heard he has had old training partners of Jon coming in to work with him. We don’t care and it’s kind of hilarious he’s doing this. But I can guarantee you there is nothing at all that is true about this other than that I called Joe Silva after someone put out a thing on Twitter that Rampage was injured and pulling out. I wanted to know what was up, but it was no more than that. That is it.”

Kawa was once briefly Evans’ co-manager, along with Glenn Robinson of Authentic Sports, but Evans was managed by Jervis Cole at the time of his UFC 114 fight with Jackson.

Evans said he hadn’t received any information about a Jackson knee injury, but said he kept punching him in the knee because Jackson reacted to it.

“I never heard a thing about it,” Evans said of Jackson’s knee injury. “I heard him talk about it after the fight. I didn’t know about it going into the fight. When I had him against the cage, I kept hitting him in the knee because of how he was reacting, not because anybody told me anything prior.

“When you’re in a fight, you just go for what you can get a reaction from. I’d punch him in the toe if I felt it was bothering him. We were leaning against the cage and it was really hard to take him down from there. I really couldn’t do much to him and he couldn’t do much to me. I wanted to keep the position and so I didn’t want the referee to break us. So I had to keep looking busy and I saw it was bothering him, so I kept hitting him in his leg. That was it.”

Jackson, though, is convinced there is someone who has been around him who has been leaking information about what he’s doing. He said that one day he was working on elbows in camp and the next day, Jones tweeted that he had to start working on elbows.

It could be a coincidence, but Jackson doesn’t see it that way. He said he is going to try to get a campaign for his fans to send him messages on his Twitter page telling whether they believe Jones is using a spy. He said he suspects he knows who is leaking the information, but said he wouldn’t release the person’s identity.

“I don’t do that,” Jackson said. “That will be between me and him. I would never out him publicly.”

He said he feels betrayed, particularly since he says he treats his sparring partners well. But he said he’s in his best shape in a long time and ready to shock Jones. Jackson said he weighs 228 pounds more than three weeks from the fight.

He takes the spying issue as a sign of weakness on Jones’ part.

“Of course they’re going to say they aren’t doing it, but we’ll put the story out there to the fans and let them decide,” Jackson said.

Spying in the fight game is hardly new. In 1987, as Marvelous Marvin Hagler was preparing to fight Sugar Ray Leonard in a major middleweight title match, Leonard sent J.D. Brown to Hagler’s camp in Palm Springs, Calif., to spy.

Brown was a matchmaker for Leonard and known to Hagler and his camp. But Brown wore glasses, dyed his hair and got into camp without being noticed. Then, to prove to Leonard that he had inside access, Brown posed as a fan and had a photograph of himself taken with Hagler after Hagler had finished sparring. He brought the photo back to Leonard’s camp as proof.

Jackson is brimming with confidence – “I don’t care what they see or who they have watching,” he said – and vowed he’d take the title from Jones.

“We all know the story about this guy,” Jackson said of Jones. “He’s going to learn a hard lesson [on Sept. 24]. He’ll see.”

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ki-iole_ufc_jackson_jones_spies_082911

long ass article, but that's kinda fucked up

Paranoia.

weak sauce.

killerofchicken wrote:

long ass article, but that's kinda fucked up

Indeed. But it fits the whole James, I mean Jones persona. If he finds out who it is he should bind him in plastic whoop his ass then lock him in a trunk for 9 days.

Ali wrote:

Paranoia.

How is it paranoia? He set it up and Jones camp took the bait and exposed themselves to Joe Silva.

If what Jackon is saying is true then someone is spying. Not paranoia...

Wolfgangsta wrote:

If what Jackon is saying is true then someone is spying. Not paranoia...

Wolfie nailed it perfectly. If what he says is true. If it is, Page gets seriously motivated, if he is lying, it does nothing but look like a bad episode of punkd.

I would not put this past Jones it fits him well. He scurrd.

josh200612 wrote:

I would not put this past Jones it fits him well. He scurrd.

He doesn't look scared when he is raping everyone in the cage with him? He may be a little bitch made but scared is not something that fits Jon Jones.

OU wrote:

josh200612 wrote:

I would not put this past Jones it fits him well. He scurrd.

He doesn't look scared when he is raping everyone in the cage with him? He may be a little bitch made but scared is not something that fits Jon Jones.

Just wait till one of the Buggalo's hit him.

josh200612 wrote:

OU wrote:

josh200612 wrote:

I would not put this past Jones it fits him well. He scurrd.

He doesn't look scared when he is raping everyone in the cage with him? He may be a little bitch made but scared is not something that fits Jon Jones.

Just wait till one of the Buggalo's hit him.

Hating just to hate.

Jones's manager Malki Kawa wrote:

"I promise to God, I have no spy in that camp," Kawa said. "It's completely and totally untrue. There is nothing to it at all. It's funny he said that, though, because we've heard he has had old training partners of Jon coming in to work with him. We don't care and it's kind of hilarious he's doing this. But I can guarantee you there is nothing at all that is true about this other than that I called Joe Silva after someone put out a thing on Twitter that Rampage was injured and pulling out. I wanted to know what was up, but it was no more than that. That is it."

Malki Kawa follows 60 people on twitter, none have recently tweeted about Rampage so I hear.

I don't think there is a spy.

Why not?

GDPofDRC wrote:

Why not?

It just seems really weird. So I'm guessing you are on the other side? You are under the impression there is a spy? Hard to really take most people's thoughts on Jones at face value considering all the hate going around.

He doesn't need a spy, but that is no reason why he wouldn't want one.

Question is, how does Joe Silva end up calling Anthony McGann saying Malki Kawa is calling him wanting to know about Rampage's injury just 4 hours after he leaked that false information in his own gym?

And Kawa, after just four hours, says he got it from his twitter, where the available evidence happens to say otherwise. If it wasn't from one of the 60 followed then maybe he was just looking in the right place on twitter making him far more efficient of an investigator then the hundreds of MMA journalists and thousands of MMA fans who comb through this kind of stuff on a regular basis to break news/make threads.

Sounds like a duck wants a cookie to me.

ill take a cookie or 2

Greg Jackson is kind of the Bill Billichick of MMA coaches when it comes to producing winners......

maybe he's the Bill Billichick in more ways than one.

Thats a crazy story.

Quote :

"@Rampage4real Just so you know, I'm not a person who looks for shortcuts in life. Unlike you, MMA is not something I do because of money. It's a way of life for me and I would never disrespect the integrity of that. I have way more faith in myself, as well as respect for the art of fighting to ever stoop that low, thats just bad karma. Believe me or not, I've said my part, hoping you have a safe and healthy finish to your camp. #Respect"

opens with a shot, closes with respect. I dont think that is that bad of a deal, but i think im wired to hate jon jones. I hope Page kills his head.

@Jonnybones yeah I keep it real,I fight 4 $ cause I hate training,but I love giving ass whoopins,and ill b giving 1 on the 24th,btw grow up!


Page's followup

Page isn't the best at talking shit but then again neither is Jones. I still think Jones rapes him to a level rivaling the beatdowns he recieved at the hands of Chute Boxe.

I think Jones will win easy but it will last until at least the 4th round.