The Bellator 120 PPV event went down last night in Mississippi with a headliner bout that saw Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson defeat King Mo Lawal by Unanimous Decision. The outcome was hotly argued about in the post fight, with many in attendance siding with Lawal about the fairness of the decision. The veteran Jackson however, put it best when Lawal was claiming victory when he said ‘look at your face!’ at cage center.
But Jackson at 35 years old was lucky to come away with a win. He fought smart, in a low crouch, and he boxed with the wild swinging Mo and was effective at times. Gone are the days of “Rampage’ where he would pick people up and slam them, he was a slow, cautious fighter who used his ring experience to stay ahead of an opponent who is still green at MMA.
Bellator is in a bind. This was billed as one of the most serious grudge matches in MMA history, and every time the two met in public, even post fight, the two jawed away like the script called for. They were threatening to kill, to dismember, to make the match worth the price of the PPV alone. In the post fight interview, it was clear that Jackson knew he had fallen flat on his performance. Calls for a rematch seem empty. It might be fun if they hyped it as ‘THIS TIME SOMEONE IS REALLY GONNA DIE’, or ‘this time I’m gonna hurt you, I mean it!’ They already had 15 minutes in the cage together and what resulted was a relative stalemate of a pair of fighters who nullify many of the advantages of the other.
The fact is, Ortiz won his fight and he is in the mix as a future opponent for either of these two guys. Jackson now gets to fight Emmanuel Newton for the gold at Light Heavyweight.
Ortiz fought two minutes before leaving Alexander Shlemenko outclassed and looking for consciousness, but in those two minutes he also looked like he lacked explosion and he appeared stiff in his take-down attempts. Since Bellator seems sure to want to feed us Tito Ortiz versus Quinton Jackson in their limited management style and capabilities, they might as well sign it now and get it over with. Cant wait to see what the PPV numbers are for this one!
