Quinton Jackson owes at least some of his success to poor judging. | Photo: D. Mandel/Sherdog.com
6. Quinton Jackson
For all of his vicious knockout power and ridiculously potent slams, Jackson owes a portion of the success he has achieved over his long and illustrious career to poor judging decisions. This tendency began all the way back in Pride Fighting Championships, where Jackson fought Murilo Rua in the second of three consecutive bouts against opponents representing the venerable Chute Boxe camp. While it was a close contest, many felt “Ninja” had taken it, and his brother, Mauricio Rua, avenged the loss clearly by knocking out Jackson with a brutal series of soccer kicks in his next outing.
The bout against Lyoto Machida at UFC 123 was, once again, more of a contentious fight than the clear robbery it has often been made out to be. Jackson stalked Machida, cut off his angles and forced him to fight close to the cage, which shut down most of the Brazilian’s offense and garnered the first and second rounds for Jackson on the judges’ cards. In the third, Machida came on strong and nearly finished “Rampage,” and Jackson was as surprised as the audience and the viewers at home when the cards were announced in his favor.
The final nail in the coffin of Jackson as a winner of close fights came just last year at Bellator 120. In the promotion’s first and only attempt at pay-per-view, Jackson took on rival Muhammed Lawal, and virtually everyone -- including 11 of 12 media members -- scored the fight 29-28 for “King Mo.” Unfortunately, the judges saw a unanimous decision for Jackson, which launched Lawal into his now-infamous “dick-riding ass” comments during his post-fight interview and indirectly led to Bjorn Rebney’s ouster from Bellator MMA.
“Rampage” is hardly the worst offender, but his sheer volume of activity during his long career means he owns more than a few contentious wins.
Number 5 » While the self-proclaimed “Baddest Man on the Planet” might lack a bit of name value in the robbery department, he is certainly one of the finest practitioners of judge-jitsu in the MMA world. His early career was built almost entirely on the strength of wins that ranged from controversial to straight-up garbage.